[alyssasaurus]

I am on an older Gateway (Model #MT3707), with Windows 7, and I am using a Seagate 1 TB expansion external drive (P/N 9SF2A4-500). I have also tried accessing this drive on my friend's Sony Vaio (brand new in Dec), my Dell Inspiron 518 (which is still running Windows Vista), and my friend's custom built PC, which is running Windows 7.

Each time I plug this drive into my computer (or any other computer, for that matter), I am confronted with the ever delightful "Do you want to scan and fix Rawr (F?" As I do not necessarily want to completely wipe my hard drive (it contains ALL of my photographs from high school, college, grad school, etc.) I am now here.

The drive is recognized by my computer the vast majority of the time, and it does show up in the Device Manager. I have tried uninstalling it, reinstalling it, updating the drivers, trying a different USB cord, plugging it into different computers, etc., and none of these things have resolved the issue. I've attached a screenshot of the Disk Management (see below).

I can access most of the files some of the time, but the portable drive is sluggish and the files (movies, especially) will timeout. I would love to be able to bring my drive back to working condition, but anything that would allow me to save my files is also an option. There are so many files on the portable that, when combined with the slowness of the drive, it is a painstakingly slow process to try and copy all of the files from the drive to any computer.

So far, I have run a chkdsk, and I have run TestDisk. I have followed the commands to run the partition repair (as described here) and I have followed the steps to "Repair FAT" (as noted in this thread). Once I run the TestDisk through to "Repair FAT," I am also only given the option to "Rebuild BS" (see image: testdisk1 below). After this happens, I am taken to a new screen (see image: testdisk2 below) and my options are Dump, List, Write, or Quit. I have no idea which option I should choose and none of this has seemed to make much of a difference thus far.

Any suggestions, tips, or tricks are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Networks]

The drive is failing the more DIY you attempt on it the less likely recovery will be. The slowness is the drive having issues reading most likely weak head/heads if you want to continue I suggest remove the drive from the enclosure connect direct via SATA on a desktop and use r-studio to scan the drive see if the data is there you still may no be able to recover it (slowness) The proper way is the get an image of the drive first and work off the image you need a drive with the same capacity or larger to image it to. R-Studio can make the image (if the drive is up to it) Keep us posted

 

[alyssasaurus]

Thanks for the quick response.

The files that I can access (and that are not abnormally slow - basically anything but videos) I have been opening and saving elsewhere with much success. Right now, I am trying to grab as much as I can this way (which takes forever, but if it works...).

If I can grab all of the things that I am desperate to save, then I think I am just going to exchange the drive for a new one because I believe that it is still under warranty. If not, then I'll crack it open and plug the drive into one of our desktops, as you mentioned above. If I get to that point, I'll let you guys know how it goes. Since I think this drive is actually still under warranty, I am hesitant to just crack the sucker open right now because it'll void out the warranty.