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Well, I'm pretty sure this has been asked lots and lots of times, I even looked at some previous questions but I couldn't do much with them, so I'm asking once more.

I have an WD external HDD, running Ubuntu 12.04. Starting yesterday the drive wouldn't auto-mount anymore and when I tried navigating to it I got this error message

Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 13: ntfs_attr_pread_i: ntfs_pread failed: > Input/output error
Failed to read NTFS $Bitmap: Input/output error
NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a
SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very
important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation
for more details.

Now, I'm not sure if the drive is formatted using NTFS. Anyway, I followed the suggestion, booted into Windows and tried running chkdsk /f, but Windows couldn't read the drive either, I got Data error (cyclic redundancy check). So I googled that and all the results point to my HDD failing. Great!

Some of the threads I found also contained the results of running fdisk, so here it is:

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe0000000

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1              63      144584       72261   de  Dell Utility
/dev/sda2          145408    21116927    10485760    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3   *    21116928   155336695    67109884    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4       155336702   488394751   166529025    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5       483153920   488394751     2620416   dd  Unknown
/dev/sda6       289554432   483151871    96798720    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda7       155336704   283283455    63973376   83  Linux
/dev/sda8       283285504   289540095     3127296   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 1499.6 GB, 1499598946304 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182315 cylinders, total 2928904192 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000389f4

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1            2048  2928904191  1464451072    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

One thread I read suggested using GSmartControl to read SMART data, but I couldn't get anything out of it.

I'm really considering sending it some professional company if I can't get it back to working state or can't recover the data by myself, but I want to try first. Any suggestions?

Mitch
  • 109,787
Felipe Ruiz
  • 21

1 Answers1

1

You could be able to backup the disk using dd:

sudo dd bs=4M if=/dev/sdb of=filename.img
sudo dd bs=4M if=/dev/sdb | gzip > filename.gz

The first command will create a 1499.6 GB (referring to your fdisk output) size image, the second will create something slightly smaller - which would not fit onto the 250GB sda drive...

It still might show up in GParted, but something that big would take ages to scan...

Using a different external HDD case could help (if it is the more normal sort of hard drive that will work in a various setups), or a different way of connecting.it..

You probably shall have to take it to some professionals, and get it fixed (or, just recovered) that way. That is may be the simplest way to do it, if the most expensive - but mucking around with 1.5 Terabytes of data could be rather difficult - particurally with input/output errors.

This is sort of referring to past experience, where my 1 Terabyte Hitachi drive I used to store videos on failed after a month, and it turned out to be the external USB enclosure that was the problem. I eventually sorted it out for myself last week, but I only recovered a 1/4 of the data, and only 3/4 of the disk now works. I can now still use it though - but not for anything important.

But I do have one or two 'tips':

  • If it is important, backup the backup - and don't use massive hard drives or partitions for backing up
  • Check the disk occasionally (GParted is usually competent at that)
  • 'Safely Remove Drive' before unpluggin it
  • Never let the computer suspend when it is plugged in (that is what killed mine)

Sorry, thats it sad

Wilf
  • 30,732