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Of hard drives and data
8 years ago
General
About two years ago I purchased a Western Digital My Passport Ultra 2TB portable hard drive. It's been pretty robust and has been a LOT better than the older portable hard drives that I owned which had smaller capacity, bigger footprint, needed a power cable, and were slower to transfer as well. It's worked so well that I became complacent and committed one of the cardinal hard drive sins: I trusted it.
I should know better than this as I've had lots of experience with hard drive problems in the past ranging from drives that became corrupted due to viruses, scrambled because of power loss, data blocks that got fouled from faulty connections, to outright drive failures. As a general rule of thumb the saying goes: there are only two types of hard drives out there, those that have failed and those that are going to fail. Back in the old days I was fairly diligent about backing up my data through CD-ROM and DVD-ROM burns but the problem with that approach is that it means your data is longer immediately accessible and you have to hunt down and place the CD in the drive in order to find the files and use them again, and you might end up eventually having numerous duplicates that you can't easily identify if they're truly unique iterations or just the same file over and over again. As time went by and hard drives became larger and cheaper I tended to keep my data on a hard drive to alleviate that problem, but I would still catch myself having problems when I failed to archive things for awhile and through some glitch or stupidity (I've mistakenly deleted whole directories instead of discreet files for example).
So I went to work last Thursday and plugged my hard drive in and noticed that the drive showed up in the file explorer but the name was missing. Clicking on the drive eventually produced an error message saying that the drive was not accessible and further review showed it to be properly functional but listed as "empty" and in a "raw" formatted state. This produced the usual amount of sweats, cursing, and panic, and when I called Western Digital tech support they said I would need to reformat the drive in order to get it working again. That was remarkably unhelpful there, tech support. Thanks for nothing. This prompted me to explore my options for data recovery however, and I found out that Best Buy's Geek Squad would be able to look at the hard drive and if they couldn't fix things then they'd be able to send it to their data recovery specialists who WOULD likely be able to fix things, but at an eye-watering price of $500 (to start). I then looked up some data recovery software I could install myself and came across a couple options: https://www.easeus.com/data-recovery-software/, https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm, and finally https://www.stellarinfo.com/windows.....fessional.php. Of these three I tried the demo versions of the first two and was GREATLY relieved to discover that both tools were able to see the contents of the hard drive and it appeared that everything onboard was still intact. The demo software even allowed me to preview some of the files and I reviewed enough things to confirm that the hard drive wasn't so much corrupted as the interface allowing the drive to be read under normal conditions with the Windows OS was compromised. My speculation is that because this drive is portable and is constantly being plugged in and unplugged that the normal means of making that "handshake" between the drive and the OS got messed up and Windows has no installed way of compensating for the issue. Fortunately the data recovery software DID have such a means of handling it, and upon reading some reviews I ended up purchasing the Stellar Data Recovery software... albeit without doing a demo test first.
Well, after installing the Stellar software I discovered that it was the one tool which required the full 6+ hour "deep scan" in order to produce a visible directory tree of my borked hard drive. Trouble was that every time the deep scan was about 95% complete the software crashed and all progress was lost. Tech support wasn't very helpful to start and kept asking me to try again, and to try it after making a clone of the hard drive and run the scan on that clone (therefore bypassing the troublesome state of the hard drive itself). The software STILL crashed, and on the fifth attempt the tech support guy was actually remotely viewing my computer desktop and confirmed that this approach wasn't going to work. He instead set up a different partition recovery and FINALLY after 7+ hours the software was able to display the same full results that the other two recovery tools had been able to do in MUCH less time. Since then I've been sloooowwwwly copying the data off the faulty hard drive into a new location and confirming that everything is properly saved and valid, so I can happily say that nothing was lost in the process, thank goodness.
So why am I posting about this? Because I want to share my struggle and let people know that A) saving anything important to you should be done in duplicate because you're gonna regret it if you lose a ton of stuff and have no backups, and B) take my advice and buy the EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and not the Stellar Data Recovery software. While I *WAS* able to get the Stellar software to properly recover everything from my hard drive it was a painful process that involved some questionable tech support advice, and that possibly could have been avoided had I gone with the EaseUS software to begin with.
Lastly I'm posting this because I'm curious to hear what you technical minded folks might suggest I do with the original WD 2TB drive that caused this to happen in the first place. I really don't feel like I can trust it anymore with my data but if my speculation is correct and the data storage capability is fine and only the "handshake" process is dodgy then perhaps I can continue using it as a non-portable drive (never unplug it again). Perhaps I'll only use it for backups, or backups of backups? Or maybe a complete reformat of the drive will wipe out all lingering issues with the drive and it'll be just as robust as it was to start out with? Any advice you guys can offer will be read with interest. Thanks!
Anyhow, that's my (long winded) story. All's well that ends well.
I should know better than this as I've had lots of experience with hard drive problems in the past ranging from drives that became corrupted due to viruses, scrambled because of power loss, data blocks that got fouled from faulty connections, to outright drive failures. As a general rule of thumb the saying goes: there are only two types of hard drives out there, those that have failed and those that are going to fail. Back in the old days I was fairly diligent about backing up my data through CD-ROM and DVD-ROM burns but the problem with that approach is that it means your data is longer immediately accessible and you have to hunt down and place the CD in the drive in order to find the files and use them again, and you might end up eventually having numerous duplicates that you can't easily identify if they're truly unique iterations or just the same file over and over again. As time went by and hard drives became larger and cheaper I tended to keep my data on a hard drive to alleviate that problem, but I would still catch myself having problems when I failed to archive things for awhile and through some glitch or stupidity (I've mistakenly deleted whole directories instead of discreet files for example).
So I went to work last Thursday and plugged my hard drive in and noticed that the drive showed up in the file explorer but the name was missing. Clicking on the drive eventually produced an error message saying that the drive was not accessible and further review showed it to be properly functional but listed as "empty" and in a "raw" formatted state. This produced the usual amount of sweats, cursing, and panic, and when I called Western Digital tech support they said I would need to reformat the drive in order to get it working again. That was remarkably unhelpful there, tech support. Thanks for nothing. This prompted me to explore my options for data recovery however, and I found out that Best Buy's Geek Squad would be able to look at the hard drive and if they couldn't fix things then they'd be able to send it to their data recovery specialists who WOULD likely be able to fix things, but at an eye-watering price of $500 (to start). I then looked up some data recovery software I could install myself and came across a couple options: https://www.easeus.com/data-recovery-software/, https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm, and finally https://www.stellarinfo.com/windows.....fessional.php. Of these three I tried the demo versions of the first two and was GREATLY relieved to discover that both tools were able to see the contents of the hard drive and it appeared that everything onboard was still intact. The demo software even allowed me to preview some of the files and I reviewed enough things to confirm that the hard drive wasn't so much corrupted as the interface allowing the drive to be read under normal conditions with the Windows OS was compromised. My speculation is that because this drive is portable and is constantly being plugged in and unplugged that the normal means of making that "handshake" between the drive and the OS got messed up and Windows has no installed way of compensating for the issue. Fortunately the data recovery software DID have such a means of handling it, and upon reading some reviews I ended up purchasing the Stellar Data Recovery software... albeit without doing a demo test first.
Well, after installing the Stellar software I discovered that it was the one tool which required the full 6+ hour "deep scan" in order to produce a visible directory tree of my borked hard drive. Trouble was that every time the deep scan was about 95% complete the software crashed and all progress was lost. Tech support wasn't very helpful to start and kept asking me to try again, and to try it after making a clone of the hard drive and run the scan on that clone (therefore bypassing the troublesome state of the hard drive itself). The software STILL crashed, and on the fifth attempt the tech support guy was actually remotely viewing my computer desktop and confirmed that this approach wasn't going to work. He instead set up a different partition recovery and FINALLY after 7+ hours the software was able to display the same full results that the other two recovery tools had been able to do in MUCH less time. Since then I've been sloooowwwwly copying the data off the faulty hard drive into a new location and confirming that everything is properly saved and valid, so I can happily say that nothing was lost in the process, thank goodness.
So why am I posting about this? Because I want to share my struggle and let people know that A) saving anything important to you should be done in duplicate because you're gonna regret it if you lose a ton of stuff and have no backups, and B) take my advice and buy the EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and not the Stellar Data Recovery software. While I *WAS* able to get the Stellar software to properly recover everything from my hard drive it was a painful process that involved some questionable tech support advice, and that possibly could have been avoided had I gone with the EaseUS software to begin with.
Lastly I'm posting this because I'm curious to hear what you technical minded folks might suggest I do with the original WD 2TB drive that caused this to happen in the first place. I really don't feel like I can trust it anymore with my data but if my speculation is correct and the data storage capability is fine and only the "handshake" process is dodgy then perhaps I can continue using it as a non-portable drive (never unplug it again). Perhaps I'll only use it for backups, or backups of backups? Or maybe a complete reformat of the drive will wipe out all lingering issues with the drive and it'll be just as robust as it was to start out with? Any advice you guys can offer will be read with interest. Thanks!
Anyhow, that's my (long winded) story. All's well that ends well.
If you ever lose a single file or handful of files, you can use their web site to recover and download whatever files you want to grab. And if you suffer a catastrophic failure, they can ship you ALL your backed up files on a hard drive. (There's a charge for the hard drive, but they'll refund the price if you send the drive back to them when you're done.)
I've never had to do the full recovery before but it's already saved me a few times on individual files ... or even if I'm away from home, away from my computer, and find I need to grab a copy of a file, since it's all there in the cloud backup. Good luck!
I do have a question for you: you mention that it will back up data on any one computer but I want to find out whether it's possible to back up multiple machines? I have two computers between my workstation and my laptop and I wonder if I would have to have two accounts in order to back up both.
Cheers!
For the drive maybe it just got a bad sector in an important spot. You can use crystaldisk info to view the drives SMART data if you want. Will let you know if its a fluke or a failing drive. I only use free software for files reovery. PhotoRec and Testdisk are the two that do well. Typical dying harddrive step one is to make an image of the drive before doing anything. This gets harder as drives get bigger. I dont have a spare 2TB to store such an image and then extract files from it. Technology!
I did come up with a perfect solution to my borked hard drive. After reformatting it and confirming through diagnostics it was working properly again I just loaded the thing up with videos and velcro'd the thing to my Smart TV so that I can now watch movies off of it easily. Everything is duplicated onto the drive so there's no loss if it gets messed up again and now suddenly I have a huge new volume of storage to use on the TV. Works for me!
Anything that you cannot afford to lose should be copied in at least two different places, and preferably 3. I use a cloud backup and external hard drive for my important stuff that I'd not want to lose if my internal hard drive failed. Drive recovery is (as you noted) expensive, and there's no guarantee that the data is recoverable. Remember: all drives fail eventually. If it's important, it's vital that you have a backup somewhere.
I did end up confirming that the old drive worked however so I'm going to continue using it but in a manner consistent with your suggestion, ie: never putting my trust in it again. Now it's just storing media for display on my TV. Thanks for the feedback!!
As many say, keep more than one copy. I don't use online backups, but rather multiple hard drives. An encrypted offsite backup is best.
To keep the backups in sync it helps to use a software aid. I use bvckup2 to update my backup drives. Though many mirroring programs exist. It helps keep things organized.
Thanks for the heads up about the bvckup2 software, -I'll be giving that a look see as I make my plans. Cheers!
Everyone who commented had Very Good suggestions, from using cloud backup plans, to NOT using that borked drive/drive housing for anything you depend on.
Mozy and Carbonite are two other cloud backup systems. The syncs do slow your system down slightly, but you can schedule them to avoid congestion. I still do standard backups, but Mozy has helped at least one of my customers recover data FAST.
Good on ya for sharing this to help others also, and here's hoping all goes well here forward!
as for the drive...
if you want to continue using it...I wouldn’t trust it for important stuff.
maybe movies and music you take with you for cons and on the road
spare ref and art examples
and only after a full format of the drive.
I believe xfat format is readable to both windows and mac
without the problem old fat32 had of not wanting to move files over a couple gigs
out of curiousity did you try plugging into a mac or linux machine to see if they could read the files,
only asking because all I saw mentioned was windows
the more techy ppl here may have other recommendations
i’ve dealt with this a bit but am in no way an expert.
good luck whichever course you take
I don't have a mac or linux machine to test so that wasn't an option, but fortunately I was able to get enough early confirmation done on the usability of the drive through the recovery software demonstration installs to confirm that the data itself didn't appear to be compromised rather it was the connectivity to the computer which wasn't happy. I've since recovered everything and nothing appears to be lost in the process, thank goodness.
Thanks for the feedback, -it's great to get help like this!
I don't know what the statistics are between the different hard drive manufactures but I've had good luck (relatively speaking of course) with Western Digital drives and have put my trust there. All my drives have been WD since 2005.
I used to work for a data recovery company, usually we'd suggest two separate backups to two different physical devices. If possible one physically removed from the area your computer is in (for fire etc).
Just FYI we would always take a sector by sector image of the faulty drive (we had proper software and hardware work around bad sectors without the drive resetting, normally if you hit a bunch of bad sectors or issues the computer just stops trying to read the drive) Then we would work on that image and not the original drive since sometimes the drive would fail completely and they usually got worse never better. Some software is better at handling certain partition and data corruption faults with a drive. We used to have 7+ programs that were used for specific logical problems with the drive. We also had a clean room to check for any physical damage or head replacement :).
This is how I do a backup:,
1. One drive is a main system drive that has the OS and things I'm working on or "current" files.
2. I clone this drive using acronis true image to a hard drive of the same (or larger) size via a hard drive dock (a USB 3 drive in a caddy works fine too). That drive is then placed in a place where fire or heat is unlikely to damage it. What happens is if the main system drive fails I can just insert this cloned drive and it will boot up immediately at the point I last cloned the main drive. Zero downtime.
3. I have another drive in the computer which is my "quick access" backup drive. Once data in certain categories on the "system" drive has hit the size of a blue-ray disc, I burn that data to blue ray (Good quality and at the slowest burn speed) then move the data into the quick access backup drive.
4.The blue rays are digitally catalogued (just a directory to text reader) and an excel document with the list of which Blue Ray is in each numbered sleeve The blueray then has the sleeve number written on it as well. The bluerays are stored away from potential fire/heat/water can damage it. This way if a power spike or internal system problem fries the drives in same computer casing I can load everything back if needed. I do have a clone as well of the quick access backup drive (3TB)that I back up to once a month but depending on what your budget is that may start to get pricey.
I would only recommend backing up to a cloud service that you pay for and is on a server in a particular location. You don't back up important data to free or cheap cloud services that may be paying their staff peanuts (security risk) or where you don't know where it's being kept (security risk again).
I would only use that 2TB drive as a backup of a backup not as a main backup and definitely not as an "only" backup. Drives rarely "get better", A full (not quick) format and a disk checker to see if there are any bad sectors. If the drive is showing any sign of being noiser or making noises, that it didn't make before, it's time to replace, if the drive is also over 5 years old and is your main drive perhaps look at replacing it. Also remember before throwing a drive out to physically destroy it so noone can extract data from it. (IMHO ditch the drive once you are sure you have all your data from it, and make sure the drive is rendered physically inoperable when you throw it out :))
Portable drives are always at higher risk of physical failure due to accidents and sudden changes in environment operating temps (hot car to AC'd room)
NAS boxes with a mirror'd raid type set up inside them can be good too but the NAS box get's fried you can lose all drives. Also NAS boxes sometimes use their own proprietry file system which is much harder to recover from if the drives get corrupted. I prefer DAS devices (Direct Access Storage) that only get used when I'm backing up and then disconnected from power when not in use.
If you use an automated backup solution make sure that it is actually backing stuff up and isn't just going through the process but not actually backing up the data (this happens more than you'd think) Once you have your solution practice a backup then a restore to make sure the process works and that you know how to restore the data.
If you want to talk some more about this you can get me on Skype or Telegram :)
I do at least have one or two hard drives which I backed up as you say on external duplicates and left unpowered all this time, but the nature of such backups are infrequent and prone to having duplicated and outdated versions of the data which is at times frequently changing over time. The discussions above about creating regular backups is a big deal that I need to and I'm pretty motivated right now, clearly.
I really appreciate the full breakdown of your backup process, -that's a far more meticulous review of a proper system than I'd thought of previously and it helps to give a good blueprint of what I should plan for. I've already got the blu-ray burner capability, I just need to make proper use of it, and the plans to get the extra hard drives set for redundancy should be a priority. I'll be getting things set in motion shortly and this will help me out a lot. Thank you!
1. Media quality (I only end up using Sony or TDK even if I have to import them from Japan, it's not too expensive)
2. Burn speed, burning at a slower speed seems to imprint the data in the media properly, I've had fast burnt media suffer from laser rot or the media trying to return to it's blank original state. (As the data isn't stamped on burnable media rather just heat and light altered media)
3. Check your media every so often to make sure it hasn't degraded.
I'm a little more paranoid about losing data because I did data recovery work and we would get repeat customers. Also it was heartbreaking to tell some people that you couldn't get their data back, and some of that data was irreplaceable.