HD errors

starcat · 02-11-2009, 08:05 AM

My HD is from Western Digital, model WD2500D036. It's portable and has 250 Gb by the way.

I was looking through my folders for stuff when I suddenly found files and folders with strange names and file extensions instead of the documents I was looking for. I tried to delete them but to no avail. The file sizes ranged from 500 MB to 3 GB but show up as 0 B when their properties are viewed.

I have tried brute force deletion methods and scanning them but turned up nothing. Then a window pops up saying that the drive is corrupt so I scanned the drive with testdisk and a bad sector count was found. So I spent 3 hours doing a thorough scan with the WD utility from the website and it says the values are okay so I'm very confused now...

It's imperative that I recover all of or at least part of the documents that were corrupted so I haven't tried reformatting, running chkdsk or scanning for disk error.

Thanks in advance for any forthcoming help

**raptor_pa** · 02-11-2009, 06:49 PM

Did testdisk find the MBR and partition table were correct? This sounds like file system corruption, maybe the drive went down dirty. You can try r-studio or getdataback in demo mode, and see which does the best job of finding your files, then purchase a license for the one that does the best, both are less than $80.00 Then zero wipe the disk with d-ban or killdisk, repartition and reformat. It is possible there is a firmware issue with the disk, but it sounds more logical....

starcat · 02-12-2009, 06:35 AM

It found that everything was okay but rated the condition of the drive as poor.

The strangest thing happened when I copied the whole folder in which I found the corrupted data to another drive to back up what remained normal. Even the folders that were corrupted in the original (and are still corrupted) showed up properly in the backup copy with all data intact so I'm not sure what to make of it

**raptor_pa** · 02-12-2009, 07:21 AM

Sounds like maybe the preamp is failing, or something on the PC board is starting to fail NVRam or firmware. Obviously it wasn't a logical failure. Get the stuff off that drive, call WD if it's still under warrantee, and repalce.

02-11-2009, 08:05 AM	#1 (permalink)
starcat Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 2 OS: Windows XP Home Edition SP2	HD errors My HD is from Western Digital, model WD2500D036. It's portable and has 250 Gb by the way. I was looking through my folders for stuff when I suddenly found files and folders with strange names and file extensions instead of the documents I was looking for. I tried to delete them but to no avail. The file sizes ranged from 500 MB to 3 GB but show up as 0 B when their properties are viewed. I have tried brute force deletion methods and scanning them but turned up nothing. Then a window pops up saying that the drive is corrupt so I scanned the drive with testdisk and a bad sector count was found. So I spent 3 hours doing a thorough scan with the WD utility from the website and it says the values are okay so I'm very confused now... It's imperative that I recover all of or at least part of the documents that were corrupted so I haven't tried reformatting, running chkdsk or scanning for disk error. Thanks in advance for any forthcoming help

02-11-2009, 06:49 PM	#2 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 4,918 OS: XP	Re: HD errors Did testdisk find the MBR and partition table were correct? This sounds like file system corruption, maybe the drive went down dirty. You can try r-studio or getdataback in demo mode, and see which does the best job of finding your files, then purchase a license for the one that does the best, both are less than $80.00 Then zero wipe the disk with d-ban or killdisk, repartition and reformat. It is possible there is a firmware issue with the disk, but it sounds more logical.... __________________

02-12-2009, 06:35 AM	#3 (permalink)
starcat Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 2 OS: Windows XP Home Edition SP2	Re: HD errors It found that everything was okay but rated the condition of the drive as poor. The strangest thing happened when I copied the whole folder in which I found the corrupted data to another drive to back up what remained normal. Even the folders that were corrupted in the original (and are still corrupted) showed up properly in the backup copy with all data intact so I'm not sure what to make of it

02-12-2009, 07:21 AM	#4 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 4,918 OS: XP	Re: HD errors Sounds like maybe the preamp is failing, or something on the PC board is starting to fail NVRam or firmware. Obviously it wasn't a logical failure. Get the stuff off that drive, call WD if it's still under warrantee, and repalce. __________________