Storage Solutions 1TB Toshiba external drive suddenly crashed

Emil said:
How does it look?
I am also running Easus Partition Master
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Looks perfect to me.

On the other hand you should check D: and E: drives and backup anything important.

If possible, move over to Linux for recovery and don't use the Ext HDD for any writes. Windows doesn't allow to mount as read only.

Most likely the data is all there as it doesn't seem like a hardware failure.
 
john1911 said:
Looks perfect to me.

On the other hand you should check D: and E: drives and backup anything important.

If possible, move over to Linux for recovery and don't use the Ext HDD for any writes. Windows doesn't allow to mount as read only.

Most likely the data is all there as it doesn't seem like a hardware failure.
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I do not have a Linux machine but I do have a Mac mini. I am migrating to it and hence I started copying my data to the Ext HDD
 
Your Crystal disk info shows a healthy drive (point no 5) so congrats there is hope.

Well after reading the thread i am assuming you are using your company issue WFH device, stop using that device to access the drive. OS Hardening + Symantec Endpoint will restrict you severely as there are lot of things blocked by default which will not be visible to you even if you have a admin access. if you still want to use the device try any of the following:

Using Diskpart

Create a live Linux USb using LiLi Live Linux USB Creator , you can use Kali/Mint/ubuntu, then mount the HDD it should be able to detect the HDD.

Finally try using all together different system for these processes.

Hope it helps.
 
Emil said:
I do not have a Linux machine but I do have a Mac mini. I am migrating to it and hence I started copying my data to the Ext HDD
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Post screenshot of D E drive too. Also, in crystaldiskinfo--function--enable "hide serial number" option. It may be possible that your Toshiba drive is fine but the D E drive you used to copy data from(assuming you used those drives as source of data) were not so the data never made it to toshiba drive correctly in the first place.
 
guest_999 said:
Post screenshot of D E drive too. Also, in crystaldiskinfo--function--enable "hide serial number" option. It may be possible that your Toshiba drive is fine but the D E drive you used to copy data from(assuming you used those drives as source of data) were not so the data never made it to toshiba drive correctly in the first place.
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Nope. I had seen my data on the external drive after transfer so the data was copied.
enthusiast29 said:
Drive actually looks good as per SMART info. Maybe a connection issue with the drive? Tried changing cables/ports? Try hooking it directly to the back of the PC instead of a front port?
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Did not try other cables. This appears to be a proprietary cable. I don't have another. I did not try the back usb ports but I tried connecting to my office laptop and it is the same. My Easus Partition Master full scan is still in progress at 56%. If that doesn't fix the issue, I will power up the Mac mini and connect the Toshiba and see. I will be very slow on the Mac as I will be learning the new ecosystem as I go along.
 

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Emil said:
Nope. I had seen my data on the external drive after transfer so the data was copied.
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Just "seeing" is sometimes not enough, you need to open/run some random files like play a video/audio file or open a picture. Your toshiba drive has no hardware issue indicators which could explain this but a software/source drive(assuming it was D or E) issue could explain data corruption while copying.

P.S. when doing some important data copy paste then don't rely on windows default copy & paste & start using some specialized file transfer software(like fast copy)/command(robocopy)/file explorer(total commander for example) which can verify the copied data using checksum verification(will double the time taken but once completed you can be sure that every last bit of data was copied successfully).
 
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My Easus partition recovery full scan is nearing completion. Will this free home edition allow me to perform recovery too or will I have to buy the pro version?
Any suggestions for a cheap cloud storage service? Archive needed. Sync is desirable but not essential.
 
Take my advice and first use some disk cloning program to clone your Toshiba hdd to disk.
WD has a free version of acronis on their website.

If you don't have enough space to make a disk image, buy a 2 or 4 TB drive. Then you can do all your restoration using that disk image. Right now your using that drive directly and with every program touching it, there is less chance of you getting the data back.
 
6pack said:
Take my advice and first use some disk cloning program to clone your Toshiba hdd to disk.
WD has a free version of acronis on their website.

If you don't have enough space to make a disk image, buy a 2 or 4 TB drive. Then you can do all your restoration using that disk image. Right now your using that drive directly and with every program touching it, there is less chance of you getting the data back.
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Thanks
Before my Toshiba 'crashed', I had been worried about deleting those folders from my primary Seagate drive. I had run Recuva and recovered most of the data and saved it on my secondary WD drive. I am reaching the conclusion that my most important data has been recovered from the original source drive. I am close giving up trying recovery from the Toshiba. Does it look like I might be able to format and reuse it or should I just trash it and forget about it because it is too risky to use it again for backup?
My Mac mini has just a 256GB SSD drive. I need an external drive. I was thinking of using a 500 GB fast drive (SSD and USB 3 i/f, perhaps thunderbolt if available) or perhaps even a flash memory card as my live data storage and a normal ext 1 TB HDD or cloud storage for archival/backup purpose. I am not aware how reliable a flash memory card would be as a data drive with the Mac mini. Any suggestions would be welcome.
 
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Emil said:
Thanks
Before my Toshiba 'crashed', I had been worried about deleting those folders from my primary Seagate drive. I had run Recuva and recovered most of the data and saved it on my secondary WD drive. I am reaching the conclusion that my most important data has been recovered from the original source drive. I am close giving up trying recovery from the Toshiba. Does it look like I might be able to format and reuse it or should I just trash it and forget about it because it is too risky to use it again for backup?
My Mac mini has just a 256GB SSD drive. I need an external drive. I was thinking of using a 500 GB fast drive (SSD and USB 3 i/f, perhaps thunderbolt if available) or perhaps even a flash memory card as my live data storage and a normal ext 1 TB HDD or cloud storage for archival/backup purpose. I am not aware how reliable a flash memory card would be as a data drive with the Mac mini. Any suggestions would be welcome.
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Use full format in windows(when right click a drive & select format then uncheck the "quick format" option).
1685093518551.png


Keep in mind full format is equivalent to writing data equal to entire size of drive so for 4TB drive it will take anywhere around 10-12 hours. After doing a full format check crystaldiskinfo status of the hdd again & if everything is still fine then there is a good chance that hdd is fine(of course there is never a guarantee as any hdd/ssd can fail at any time no matter its price/tech/age). For more assurance you can do this 2 times(aka full format 2 times back to back).

Flash memory cards are typically less reliable than a good ssd while more reliable flash cards will likely cost more than good ssd. The basic rule of backup is that you must have at least 2 different copies of data in 2 different drives along with one additional copy in cloud if possible. You can get Microsoft office 365 1 year subscription personal edition which cost around 3.5k per year & gives 1TB free onedrive space or you can get/share office 365 family edition which cost around 5k per year & comes with 6 accounts each having 1TB onedrive space so total 6TB.

Sharing MS Office 365 with 1TB cloud storage - ₹500/year

MS Office 365 home subscription comes with suite of MS office and 1TB cloud storage on OneDrive. This can be shared among 6 people - with each of them getting 1TB storage (hence 6TB storage in total). Generally its about ₹4.5K/year and hence about ₹750/person/year when sharing among 6 pax. I...
techenclave.com techenclave.com

You also get to use latest genuine office software(word, powerpoint, excel) on 5 devices for each office 365 acc.
 
Emil said:
I am close giving up trying recovery from the Toshiba. Does it look like I might be able to format and reuse it or should I just trash it and forget about it because it is too risky to use it again for backup?
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Nothing is wrong with the harddrive, it's just windows being stupid again. You can always format the drive to APFS and use it normally. Just because windows can't read it's own file system properly doesn't mean that the drive is damaged or risky.
 
guest_999 said:
You can get Microsoft office 365 1 year subscription personal edition which cost around 3.5k per year & gives 1TB free onedrive space or you can get/share office 365 family edition which cost around 5k per year & comes with 6 accounts each having 1TB onedrive space so total 6TB.

Sharing MS Office 365 with 1TB cloud storage - ₹500/year

MS Office 365 home subscription comes with suite of MS office and 1TB cloud storage on OneDrive. This can be shared among 6 people - with each of them getting 1TB storage (hence 6TB storage in total). Generally its about ₹4.5K/year and hence about ₹750/person/year when sharing among 6 pax. I...
techenclave.com techenclave.com

You also get to use latest genuine office software(word, powerpoint, excel) on 5 devices for each office 365 acc.
Click to expand...
MS is offering this @ Rs 6000/- and I see FK is offering the same thing @ Rs 2400/-. How come? Is it safe? Moreover, FK seller says lifetime account. Does it mean I don't have to renew annually like with MS? The IT Depot and Amazon too have attractive pricing. What happens when one has to renew? Do we pay MS the full price or continue the account by using one of these?
6pack said:
Nothing is wrong with the harddrive, it's just windows being stupid again. You can always format the drive to APFS and use it normally. Just because windows can't read it's own file system properly doesn't mean that the drive is damaged or risky.
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Is there a good chance that it still has the files and I will be able to see them from the Mac mini?
 
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Emil said:
MS is offering this @ Rs 6000/- and I see FK is offering the same thing @ Rs 2400/-. How come? Is it safe? Moreover, FK seller says lifetime account. Does it mean I don't have to renew annually like with MS? The IT Depot and Amazon too have attractive pricing. What happens when one has to renew? Do we pay MS the full price or continue the account by using one of these?
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Flipkart listing is fake/non-genuine. Office 365 can never be lifetime, it is only sold as 1 year subscription which you need to renew every year. Amazon & IT depot are fine but make sure on amazon you are buying from a reputed seller(I prefer amazon own seller appario retail for MS products but sometimes they are out of stock for this). To renew you just need a valid key which you can get from anywhere(MS, amazon, it depot).
 
Emil said:
Is there a good chance that it still has the files and I will be able to see them from the Mac mini?
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Tbh, i don't know. I never owned a mac and don't know if it can read NTFS formatted drives. A quick Google search says Mac can read NTFS but not write which is a good sign. Your files will be there if you don't mess the drive trying to write to it. You should never write or delete anything from a drive you are trying to recover data from.

I usually use this Testdisk. Seems like it has mac version too. It is just terminal based. Don't work directly on the disk if you know what I mean.

www.cgsecurity.org

TestDisk Download

Download TestDisk & PhotoRec. TestDisk is a free and open source data recovery software tool designed to recover lost partition and unerase deleted files. PhotoRec is a file carver data recovery software tool.
www.cgsecurity.org www.cgsecurity.org
 
guest_999 said:
Check the integrity of data by opening some pics/play some files from there after copying them to mac.
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I opened them on the Mac directly from the Toshiba drive and they worked fine. One pdf, one docx and a few jpgs.
I will now need to buy myself a new external HDD so that I can copy the contents of the Toshiba and then reformat the Toshiba and use it as a backup. Then I'll have another backup on the cloud.

Any suggestions for a good SSD external drive to pair with my Mac mini? I'm thinking Crucial X6 or X8. Will the X8 give me a practical advantage in real world use? I need to order by tomorrow to take advantage of the 10% Bank CC discount.
 
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Emil said:
I'm thinking Crucial X6 or X8. Will the X8 give me a practical advantage in real world use? I need to order by tomorrow to take advantage of the 10% Bank CC discount.
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Go with X8 as X6 does not seem to have an activity led which in my opinion is must for such a usb storage device.
 
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