Need a little computer help

[Drascin]

Okay, normally I'm in the answering end of these questions, and not the making, but here I'm kind of panicking and don't know where to search and such so I really need someplace to ask and you guys are it.

So I have an external HD, 1TB in size. I save pretty much everything important there, simply put - documents to videos to music. But a couple days ago it started giving some trouble. Some folders wouldn't open, popping instead the "unit J: doesn't have format" messages, and CRC errors here and there. Given that this is my "saving stuff" disk, needless to say this was very, very worrying. A quick Google suggested a round of chkdsk before trying for anything more radical, so I did so - went to cmd, got the chkdsk /f going, and waited.

But, first, the screensaver popped, which for some reason together with chkdsk seemed to almost crash my computer - in the end it came back, but it stood in the same place for a long, long while. And now, when I go to the HD, a fair amount of files have basically disintegrated. There was a serious hell of a lot of stuff there, lots of it valuable, and I'm now panicking very much about the chance that I might have destroyed them forever.

Anyone know what this could be due to, and if there's any way to fix this?

[Jimorian]

Not the same kind of problem, but I had a backup hard drive just stop working to the point that plugging it into either a PC or a Mac would just freeze the computer solid until I unplugged it again.

I was able to trick the computer into seeing it momentarily by messing with the jumper pins (<-- this part won't be relevant to you), then formatted it. Then I immediately ran a file recovery program and got back most of what was on it.

Short version, sometimes formatting a bad hard drive will settle it down long enough to run recovery software to get your files off. You might try a recovery pass before formatting, though, and if that doesn't work, then do the format. The hope is that it's just the file pointers that are messed up, but the actual files are still whole, which a data recovery program can find.

The program I used was MiniTool Power Data Recovery 6.0 off of Download.com, since it was free to try, but still allowed actual data recovery during the trial.

[factotum]

It sounds like the drive is dead or dying. I suppose it's possible it's the interface rather than the drive itself which is gone, which would mean you could theoretically dismantle the thing and install the actual drive inside your PC to get the stuff off it--sounds more likely it's the drive itself gone, though. I would personally copy everything I can off the drive before it dies completely--although personally I would have been keeping backups of all this important stuff anyway, because an external drive is no less likely to fail than an internal one!

[Drascin]

It sounds like the drive is dead or dying. I suppose it's possible it's the interface rather than the drive itself which is gone, which would mean you could theoretically dismantle the thing and install the actual drive inside your PC to get the stuff off it--sounds more likely it's the drive itself gone, though. I would personally copy everything I can off the drive before it dies completely--although personally I would have been keeping backups of all this important stuff anyway, because an external drive is no less likely to fail than an internal one!

Thing is - this was my backup drive. As I said, I save everything important here, once every couple weeks or so, to make space in my (rather small) internal drives and to ensure it's safe. I went to get a few documents back, and bam, it's screwed up.

You can't exactly start doing doing backups of backups, because then that would also need backups, and then you get into a "have every piece of data in sextuplicate" waste of space bussiness...

Well, now that I'm a bit calmer (or, rather, simply too detached and sad to even panic anymore. Turns out, disgraces never come alone. My computer's power source appears to have blown up, since it didn't start this morning. Thanks for laptops, or I wouldn't be posting this) I'll try about finding some data recovery tool and see what I can salvage.

I'd really just like having enough money to buy a replacement and save as much as possible...

[Jimorian]

Actually, you always want more than one backup, particularly for important files.

The general rule of thumb is to have a 2nd HD, either internal or preferably external to make frequent "easy" backups to. If you regularly have to clear space on your computer, then you need 2 other HDs. Another computer on a home network also qualifies as a backup drive.

At a regular interval, make a backup copy of irreplacable files (family photos, etc) to a more "durable" media like DVD/CD. Make sure your backup of this overlap so that files end up on more than one disc because even untouched, optical discs will eventually degrade.

Then, every 6 months to a year, make a backup of *vital* files, e-mail, important documents, tax files if you do them by computer, etc., and store that backup away from your home. At a relative's house, at work, someplace that would be safe if your house burned down, got hit by a flood or tornado, or robbed. Some of the online backup sites help, but I wouldn't trust the as a sole form of backup for anything important.

When you have your important files copied at least 5 or 6 times, on at least 2 different forms of media, and 2 different physical locations (preferably different cities even), THEN you're approaching having enough backups. Until then, you're at risk of losing something you don't want to lose.