Hello, I'm hoping somone can point me in the right direction.
This involves a Sony VAIO laptop model VGN-NR385E with a Toshiba MK2546GSX HDD2D90 SATA drive running updated Vista. From Sony, the drive should contain a working partition and the hidden recovery partition.
What had started as a restore/repair issue, has now changed most importantly to a recovery issue. Currently, I've removed the drive and am trying to access it with a Vantec SATA to USB adapter (CB-ISATAU2) on my desktop pc running XP. On the first try, I was able to see the full drive structure in my Windows explorer. I viewed some pics, made a test copy of a few files onto an external WD USB drive plugged into my XP machine and thought I was in the clear to continue with the full recovery later that evening. I closed the explorer and shut the drive down, but when I came back later, I couldn't access the drive again. I could eventually see the drive (mapped as J
in my explorer, but it caused the explorer to hang terribly and I never could see the file structure or contents again. In My Computer, the J: drives shows up but there is no file size info. With the Vantec adapter, the drive powers up and spins, and has never made any noises now or before indicating that is it having troubles (no grinding, clicking, unusual sounds, etc).
Here's the details of what I am currently seeing if I try to access this drive on my XP machine.
1) In Windows explorer, when I click on the J: drive, it hangs my pc for a minute then pops up with a message saying the J: drive is not formatted and asking if I want to reformat the drive - obviously I don't.
2) In Windows explorer, if I right click on J:, then Properties, there is a long delay and finally it shows:
Type: Local Disk
File System: RAW
3) In Device Manager > Disk Drives I see
Toshiba MK2546GSX_200 USB Device Properties
Disk: Disk 3
Type: Basic
Status: Online
Partition Style: Master Boot Record (MBR)
Capacity: 190780 MB
Unallocated space: 0 MB
Reserved Space: 0 MB
Volumes
(J
182670 MB
Recovery 8110 MB
4) In Disk Management, I see the two Sony partitions with this info:
Volume - J: Recovery
Layout - Partition Partition
Type - Basic Basic
File system - NTFS
Status - Healthy (Active) Healthy (Unknown Partition)
Capacity - 178.39 GB 7.92 GB
Free Space - 178.39 GB 895MB
% Free - 100% 11%
Note the (J
is blank in the File System
5) Finally, I opened the DOS prompt via Run> cmd, and try to change to the J: drive (cd j:\) but it shows:
Data error (cyclic redundance check).
That's where I currently stand. In the end, I'd love to get access to the drive to attempt some scanning and repairs, and hopefully a re-install using my recovery disks and the recovery partition, but for now, just getting my data off is the primary task, most importantly pics of my 2 yr old girl since I did a back-up in December.
Thanks for any help !!!!!!!
Scott A
*********
Note: A few words on the back story what proceeded this. The notebook is running Vista, kept up to date and scanned, using Security Center, Malwarebytes, CCleaner, Spybot S&D, etc. A week ago Thursday March 17, it downloaded some Microsoft updates, one for Security Center, the malicious software removal tool and two other updates. I rebooted and within 20 mins of use it locked up.
I had Excel and some IE windows open, and I couldn't shut anything down via Ctrl-Alt-Del, etc. After another 8-10 mins with no activity or way to do anything, I held the power button to shut down. Waited a few then rebooted, but it would not boot past the scrolling bars. If I booted to Safe mode, it would load drivers but always hang just after loading CRCDISK.SYS then kick back out and reboot into an endless loop of stalled bars, rebooting, on and on. I gave it a few more tries knowing something was messed up, so I finally got the recovery disks out. These booted, but the repair option said it found an error but could not fix it. I rebooted and it said it was shut down incorrectly and needed to scan the drive. This kept repeating and could not complete as it just stalled.
I googled CRCDISK hanging in Safe mode and found hundreds of similar reports, often of recently installed MS updates, loosing stability, inability to reboot or repair the disk. Some responses hinted at pcmcia or 1394bus drivers in windows\system32\drivers, others of repairs changing permissions, others reporting they could regain use by changing the drive from SATA types to IDE and back again in the BIOS. I couldn't access a cmd prompt to even access those files, so I tried accessing the Sony BIOS to look at the SATA settings, but it was locked with the most basic of info. Another search yielded a hint that the Sony could boot with F10 into a tool set similar to the recovery disk, but with an option to save some of your data to an external location.
Onto the next day, I tried again by booting with F10 to the on-board tools. This F10 tools did indeed have the option to save data and I could see the ENTIRE file structure still in place, so I selected what I wanted and it started copying to an external USB drive. This ran overnight but locked up with barely anything copied the next morning. I rebooted into the F10 tools, this time using the scan or repair option. It found errors on the C: drive and said it repaired them. Closing that, it lost the volume information and could not see the C: or recovery partitions now. Restarting, it would not begin to boot, stalling at the scrolling bars, rebooting and trying to scan as it was shut down incorrectly, etc. I booted to the recovery disks again, but stalled as it could not find an OS and I could not figure out what drivers it was asking for to select any myself.
At this point, about all I could do was boot with F2 into the meager BIOS page. Nothing could be accessed via the recovery disk, the on-board F10 recovery of the F8 safe mode options. That when I decided to pull the drive and use the SATA to USB adapter to try and see the files in XP. Again that worked the first time I plugged it into my XP machine and worked with copying some 8 files. All seemed good, but exiting explorer seemed to kill my access to the drive and I could never see the contents again.
I have read that perhaps the issue could also be about plug and play or resetting the USB controllers to allow the port to re-find the drive as the adapter is plugged in again. I've gone down that path, unplugged all other USB plugs, changed which port I plug the Vantec into, removing the USB controllers and letting them rebuild when I reboot, but I still cannot access anything on the drive. Plugging the adapter in now, my XP machine does see that a USB drive is being plugged in, it does asign the J: drive letter to it and it does show up in the toolbar letting me shut it down so the USB can be safely unplugged ... just as my details above list, I think it is physically seeing the drive but perhaps it has just lost the file structure (NTFS ??) so that it can't actually see the structure, file folders and individual files.
End of my long story !!! Cheers if you read it all
