Hi one and all,

I had a snafu with an external usb drive the other night (dropped on floor), since then the drive even though the system recognises it, will not assign a block number to it; no system I have tried it with will assifn a block bumber 0 so I was wondering if the drive is buggered or if some jind person knows what to do to get around this problem.

cheers

slackbat

First off try it on a different system / OS, see if it's recognized on different hardware or under Windows.

If it's still not recognized the highly likely it's a candidate for disposal.

I would guess the drive is mechanical as one member posts spinning rust?

Most likely its completely buggered. You can try running a SMART test, most USB drives are supported. The electronics still work which is why it is recognized but the actual disk is fubar so the system can not read it and assign device IDs.

Hi all,

I forgot to mention I have tried it in different nix's, windows I have checked the messages in dmesg, fdisk, cfdisk, lsusb, gparted - the disk shows in all, but no block/id, anyway of accessing the drive contents.

Its lucky that this is a backup to a backup.

Its always been slightly flaky.

I will check out SMART as suggested.

cheers

slackbat

If you hold that disk in your hand when you attach it, do you feel the drive spin up? If not then it is a candidate for disposal.

With a HDD there are 2 critical mechanical issues.
1. The platters & bearings. Too much impact can damage the shaft, bearings or miss-align the platters.

2. The heads. Too much impact can damage the heads or the movement / alignment mechanism.

If either of those have happened then a professional recovery service would be needed to recover the data.

Unless the data is critical the best solution is replace it. If desired destroy the data on the old device with crushing.

Hi all,

Thanks computersavvy; I have held the drive and there is vibration; but due to the drive being a backup and the data not being that important I do not think that a data retrievel service is called for - I will just get another.

But thanks anyway.

All the best everyone...slackbat

ist kaput