HDD not reading, and crashes windows

[SacredScout]

Morning lads,

2 days ago I could not boot into windows 8. I tried lots of options, and finally I installed Win 7. I could not not load the setup during my installation. When I unpluged all that faulty HDD, the Setup did load and I could install Win 7. When I plug that HDD in again, it won't work. It gets stuck in the loading screen and my newly installed Win 7 tells me there may be incosistency, but cannot fix it. Chkdsk doesn't detect it either. Linux detects the HDD, but can't access it. Gives a error that it may be inconsistent or thar it may have a hardware fault. I copied all of the data onto a empty HDD on a img file. At the end it told me it had around 800 kb of unreadable sectors. Smart read test failed as well.

I am not sure if the img file even works. Had no timeto che k.

What may cause this weird error? Windows wont boot when its plugged in and Linux can access it but cant mount it.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, SacredScout.

It really sounds like the drive's in a pretty tough spot. I can't tell for sure what's the exact nature of the problem, but it looks like the drive is failing. It could be bad sectors, it could be something else.
Since you're unable to use your computer when you connect this drive, or at least unable to boot to Windows, I'd suggest that you give it a try with a different computer, to see if the same thing happens. If you're able to use the computer properly, since you're not sure if the image you've made is OK, you could try and use data recovery software to retrieve your files: https://www.lifewire.com/free-data-recovery-software-tools-2622893

Once you're done with the data recovery, you could contact the vendor you got the drive from and/or the manufacturer and try to RMA it if it's still under warranty.

Hope that helps.
Boogieman_WD

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

The drive has failed for sure - - it happens to all hard drives at some point. Only fix is to bin it and replace.

You should have kept the data on it backed up to another drive or optical media - - no backups is bound to result in data loss when the inevitable happens.

 

[SacredScout]

Can't it be that there may be a software error? Since Linux can detect it. Win and Linux can't read it both, though.

When I arrive home I will check the img file. I guess I should be able to read it with Daemon Tools lite?

Also, how can it be that only bad sectors of 800kb cause the HDD to disrupt the boot of Windows? I really hope that I can get my data back. If not, perhaps I should try testdisk.
Back soon!

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Good luck with the data! Let us know how it goes.

Other than that, unfortunately, it's not a software issue. I usually recommend trying out Ubuntu Live with problematic HDDs in hopes that a different OS will be capable of recognizing the partitions. So the fact that you can see the drive when you're using Linux unfortunately doesn't mean that it's OK. Bad sectors are physical damage on the surface of the drive's platters. Sometimes even several of them could prevent you from booting to Windows, depending on the data that's on them as it's corrupted and unreadable.

 

[SacredScout]

If anyone had the same problem: The chkdsk of Windows 8.1 did not work. I tried fixing it for 3 days.

The only way was to get uninstall Windows 8.1 and to get Windows 7. I had to unplug that HDD. Then I replugged it in (after Win7 was installed.) Then, it executed chkdsk and repaired the HDD's - all of them were inconsistent to a certain degree.

No problems since it is fixed, which is 3 months since now.

 

[sizzling]

Keep data backed up, the drive sounds like its dying. You have revived it for now but I wouldn't trust it.