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Unreadable USB External Disk

Well, I bought a 1TB external drive a few months back because I thought I'd be able to use it with my next PC; like it'd be a good investment.

I've since almost filled it up, and it has died on me today. It's been tempermental for a while, but now it's really not working at all. When I plug it in dmesg gives me this:

Code:

usb 1-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5

usb 1-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

scsi5 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices

usb 1-3: New USB device found, idVendor=13fd, idProduct=1340

usb 1-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3

usb 1-3: Product: External        

usb 1-3: Manufacturer: Generic 

usb 1-3: SerialNumber: 57442D574341553435333737

usb-storage: device found at 5

usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning

scsi 5:0:0:0: Direct-Access    Generic  External        2.10 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4

sd 5:0:0:0: [sda] 1953525168 512-byte hardware sectors (1000205 MB)

sd 5:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off

sd 5:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 21 00 00 00

sd 5:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through

sd 5:0:0:0: [sda] 1953525168 512-byte hardware sectors (1000205 MB)

sd 5:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off

sd 5:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 21 00 00 00

sd 5:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through

 sda:<3>end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0

__ratelimit: 4 callbacks suppressed

Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0

Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0

Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0

Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0

 unable to read partition table

sd 5:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk

sd 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0

usb-storage: device scan complete

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0

Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0

Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 1

Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 2

Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 3

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0

Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0

Buffer I/O error on device sda, logical block 0

end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 0

I do not have a drive large enough to copy all 750GiBs sector by sector with dd right now, so I need to fix it or store it safely until I do. I use Slackware 12.2 and it's a 1TB WD Green drive in a Cavalry enclosure. I'll be trying it with SATA in my brother's PC soon, but that's not something I can try now.

Anyone have suggestions besides dd and SATA port/internal testing it?

If this is an IDE drive, pull the connector from your disk (inside the housing), then re-insert the connector. Sometimes you have to scrape the contacts on a drive to get a good connection. Try that, first.

Yeah, I already tried that. No difference. =/

Also, I mean it's a Cavalry external drive (came with the hdd) that's really a WD Green... thing. Technically the warranty's gone. =P

Oh, and it's actually a SATA drive, but I tried the connection anyway. I'll be trying it in a pc with SATA later.

I haven't made any progress and it's really starting to get on my nerves.

What happened when you plugged it into another host? Do you get the same 'sector 0' error?

Yep. I've also tried it on various windows machines and it'll appear in device manager but it says that there is no volume information, so it won't show up in disk management. It's actually formatted NFTS if it matters at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by technik733 (Post 3731229)

tried it on various windows machines and it'll appear in device manager but it says that there is no volume information, so it won't show up in disk management. It's actually formatted NFTS if it matters at all.

I'm not sure I understand, but it appears that you are having failure both from windows machines and from Linux. If that's the case, then you are hosed and should be prepared to wipe the disk and start fresh (sorry).

But assuming I'm not interpreting you correctly, that you might actually be able to read this disk from Windoze, you might want to check your NTFS drivers and configuration on the Linux box and try to mount it that way.

Add to /etc/fstab something like:

Code:

 

 /dev/sd??  /mnt/ntfs  ntfs    ro  1 3

...where ?? completes the drive info (i.e. /dev/sda1)

I was hoping that it might be some kind of issue with the filesystem, but it's actually not even showing up in windows' disk management, so I can't format it (from there), and I haven't tried cfdisk on it from linux, but I'd expect the same result.

I'd sooner send it off to a data recovery place than format it though; I've got everything I've felt like saving for like 4 years on that thing. Heh, unfortunately my desktop also went out recently, so it's my only viable copy right now. :C

I'll try that with the fstab, but I'm not optimistic. It would be sda1; there's only one partition.