Help! I need to copy important data off a slow and failing portable external hard drive

[Poncho]

Yep, I know that at this point, that water has crossed the bridge, at this point I am trying to move foreward with a solution, thanks, for the app suggestion, but am not sure if it working or not, been cloning for about 8+ days now with no end in sight, not sure what to do.

I haven't done the Data Rescue 'Clone' option before. I have just ignored it and told Data Rescue to just keep ploughing on. Anyway. What I would do is cancel the clone. You will then get a another black screen (I think) asking you if you want to cancel. Click cancel. What will happen then is that your Target Drive will not be showing as it will be still unmounted. Go to Disk Utilities and Mount it. Or power it down, unplug it and then plug it in again. Hopefully you will have most, if not, all your data saved to the Target Drive.

If you can't see any data on there I would imagine it is because you are using a demo version of Data Rescue. If this is the case then I would look at the Target Disk in Disk Utility and see if it is reporting how much of the disk is used and how much is free. if it is reporting that a lot of it is used (especially if the amount is equal to that on the corrupted disk) then I would assume your data has been cloned to it. Now it's a case of letting everything cool down and setting Data Rescue to work on the clone. Let it run for 20 mins and press cancel and it should show you what files it has found so far. A good clue as to what you have managed to rescue.

 

[Sossity]

So I ended up having to force quit the data rescue app through activity monitor, it was showing as not responding, and got it to quit. I then had both drives mounted with the same name, looked them up, in disk utility both showing the same capacity and space free and used, even though the new destination drive is a 5 TB drive and the failing one was a 4TB one.

So I shut my desktop down, to give it a long needed break, I hope I have not worn out my internal ssd drive I put in it, and will turn it on again in a bit and then plug in the new cloned drive and see how it worked.

 

[Poncho]

So I ended up having to force quit the data rescue app through activity monitor, it was showing as not responding, and got it to quit. I then had both drives mounted with the same name, looked them up, in disk utility both showing the same capacity and space free and used, even though the new destination drive is a 5 TB drive and the failing one was a 4TB one.

That sounds promising. I reckon pretty much all the data has been cloned. Now it's a question of whether you can see the actual data. If you are using a demo version of Data Rescue (are you?) I can't imagine you would be able to clone the data and just get it back with out paying them. Quite a loophole if that proves to be the case...

 

[Poncho]

I hope I have not worn out my internal ssd drive

Download free trial of DriveDX and check. It will show you how much of your SSD lifetime you have left. Wouldn't have thought you would have written to it much though. You are writing data from the corrupt drive to the Target Disk, up and down wires. Not to your SSD. Your processor and RAM would have been doing the heavy lifting.DriveDX will also show you what's wrong with your corrupted drive in more detail. If it shows the very same problems with your new Target Drive then you will know the corruption has been cloned over. Not a problem. We will get your data back...

 

[Sossity]

I plugged the clone drive into my laptop, and a pop message came up saying MacOS could not repair the disk, files can be copied and opened but to edited from it or something close to that.

I browsed around on it, and from my brief browsing, it looks like alot of data was lost, I have maybe half of it left, many files are just missing, and there is a whole folder full of lost and found items, that have individual files in them, but they were taken out of their original folder file structure I had for them, and it would take me a very long time to figure out and place them all back into their original folders.

I was using the free download of data rescue, or at least I was never prompted to buy anything, nor what I could see of what their policies were of the download versus the paid version, there did not seem to be a differentiation between them, just download and use. Based on that, I am not sure I trust that app, if it does not seem to spell out what it will do or not do in free version versus paid version.

Edit; On their website, it looks like it runs a scan for free, and then shows the files it can recover, and then you pay for what you want to recover, but I don't remember the scan option being available when I first plugged in my bad drive, it seems the clone option was the first option I saw, or that is what it initially offered me as a pop up message. I chose to clone using segments. There is also a professional version, at $399.99 and way too much for me now, but it is a monthly subscription, of which I don't like subscription based services, and generally avoid them if possible.

I had many PDF scans of receipts that I did for my records, and have shredded the originals, to reduce paper clutter, all of them appear to be gone from the folder they were originally in, and do not seem to be in the lost and found folder.

It would take me a very long time to try to go and find every missing file, I had alot of data on this drive.

I am at a loss, and do not know where to go from here. I don't think I will ever want to go to hard drives, they have proven to be totally unreliable, thankfully, I have been to migrating to cloud storage, and now I am considering backing up all of what data I have left all to Google drive, and only using a hard drive or two as local offline backups.

I do wonder if using a hard drive a like an active local drive, where I am frequently writing new smaller bits of data to as opposed to whole blocks of data makes them more prone to failures and errors. That is what I was dojng with this drive, writing info to it frequently, and opening and reading files too.

 

[Poncho]

I plugged the clone drive into my laptop, and a pop message came up saying MacOS could not repair the disk, files can be copied and opened but to edited from it or something close to that.

That's because Data Rescue has cloned across to the Target Drive all the corruption that exists on the corripted drive. This is to be expected. At least you can copy data of the new disk, even though you can't write to it.

from my brief browsing, it looks like alot of data was lost,

Does the amount of data on the clone equal that on the corrupted drive? If so, it's probably all there, but much of it without original file and folder names, as you say. Or maybe it is in a state that only Data Rescue, which created the clone, can see properly, it being a trial copy.

I don't remember the scan option being available when I first plugged in my bad drive

If I remember correctly, you chose 'Deep Scan, and then, when Data Rescue reported disk-read errors it threw up the option to clone the drive. You selected this, whereas I would have ignored it and told Data Rescue to keep deep scanning.

I am at a loss, and do not know where to go from here

You now have nothing to lose by swapping things around and running Data Rescue on the newly cloned Target Drive. Stop it after 30 mins and cancel and see what Data Rescue shows it has found. The new Target Drive will be fresh out of the box and healthy so you're not going to damage it. Also, Data Rescue won't be writing to it, it will just be reading all the blocks.

Look out for a private message from me

Also, I believe you can pause scans with Data Rescue. So you can disconnect the Target Drive you are now scanning if things are getting hot, re-attach it later and then resume the scan, Data Rescue picking up where it left off. It is building a directory of the files and folders it finds and, with Deep Scan, is scouring each block for Raw Data, so you might find you get back stuff you previously threw in the trash when using the disk in the past.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote in #30:
"I browsed around on it, and from my brief browsing, it looks like alot of data was lost, I have maybe half of it left, many files are just missing, and there is a whole folder full of lost and found items, that have individual files in them, but they were taken out of their original folder file structure I had for them, and it would take me a very long time to figure out and place them all back into their original folders."

The "loss of folder/file hierarchies" is common for data recovery.
You may get files back, but you lose file names and folder hierarchies.
The important thing is... you at least get the data back (or some of it).

You have a long LONG road ahead of you, perhaps months of work to recover and re-organize these files. This is going to be the case even if you pay for the data recovery app and it "does its thing".

OP also wrote:
"I am at a loss, and do not know where to go from here. I don't think I will ever want to go to hard drives, they have proven to be totally unreliable, thankfully, I have been to migrating to cloud storage, and now I am considering backing up all of what data I have left all to Google drive, and only using a hard drive or two as local offline backups."

Again, your only hope may be to return the drive, and let the manufacturer get the data back for you.

Other than that, you may have to just write this off to experience, and start over -- a sadder, but now wiser man.

I would never never NEVER NEVER "trust the cloud" with important business or client data -- but that's just me. Others will advise differently.

In the future, be careful from whom you buy your hard drives.
Actually, I would suggest you buy "bare drives", enclosures, and put them together yourself.

I'd also suggest SSD storage.
But for every "primary SSD", you also need TWO SSD backups.

This is your business and your livelihood, is it not?

 

[Sossity]

OP wrote in #30:
"I browsed around on it, and from my brief browsing, it looks like alot of data was lost, I have maybe half of it left, many files are just missing, and there is a whole folder full of lost and found items, that have individual files in them, but they were taken out of their original folder file structure I had for them, and it would take me a very long time to figure out and place them all back into their original folders."

The "loss of folder/file hierarchies" is common for data recovery.
You may get files back, but you lose file names and folder hierarchies.
The important thing is... you at least get the data back (or some of it).

You have a long LONG road ahead of you, perhaps months of work to recover and re-organize these files. This is going to be the case even if you pay for the data recovery app and it "does its thing".

OP also wrote:
"I am at a loss, and do not know where to go from here. I don't think I will ever want to go to hard drives, they have proven to be totally unreliable, thankfully, I have been to migrating to cloud storage, and now I am considering backing up all of what data I have left all to Google drive, and only using a hard drive or two as local offline backups."

Again, your only hope may be to return the drive, and let the manufacturer get the data back for you.

Other than that, you may have to just write this off to experience, and start over -- a sadder, but now wiser man.

I would never never NEVER NEVER "trust the cloud" with important business or client data -- but that's just me. Others will advise differently.

In the future, be careful from whom you buy your hard drives.
Actually, I would suggest you buy "bare drives", enclosures, and put them together yourself.

I'd also suggest SSD storage.
But for every "primary SSD", you also need TWO SSD backups.

This is your business and your livelihood, is it not?

Well, hard drives don't seem to be trustworthy either, but I hear what you are saying about client data, of which I do not have, this was all my own personal stuff, documents, and school stuff.

I have looked at SSD drives, and I may get one, but they cost alot more per storage, and I have lots of photos and videos that would fill them up right away, and they all seem to top out at 2TB. That would get way too costly for me fast.

More likely, I would get one as a working drive for those documents that are not as big as video and photo files, and that would not fill up a drive so fast.

 

[Alive76]

I had an issue with drives in my NAS, also WD. There seemed no way to repair, bad sectors were increasing and I was getting desperate. As a last resort, I took de drives out, hooked them up to a PC, and had WD utilities repair it. Didn't think it would work but it actually did. After running g some drive tests no bad sectors were found. Obviously I did replace the drives but it was such a relief. Not sure this would fix your particular problem, but worth a try.

 

[Sossity]

I had an issue with drives in my NAS, also WD. There seemed no way to repair, bad sectors were increasing and I was getting desperate. As a last resort, I took de drives out, hooked them up to a PC, and had WD utilities repair it. Didn't think it would work but it actually did. After running g some drive tests no bad sectors were found. Obviously I did replace the drives but it was such a relief. Not sure this would fix your particular problem, but worth a try.

Did you get the western digital utilities repair online? was it an app?

I am not sure how I would get the drive out, it is in a tightly enclosed plastic enclosure.

 

[Fishrrman]

In the future, I'd avoid both Seagate and WD drives.
If I needed a platter-based drive, I'd be looking at Toshiba and HGST (Hitachi), in the 2.5" form factor.

 

[ght56]

1. Has any SMART application confirmed that the drive is failing?
2. If you use a program like DriveDX that can pull SMART data, what are the specific errors and failures on the malfunctioning drive? (Some read errors can actually be caused by a failing enclosure, and not a failing hard drive. Correct me if I am wrong but you are still using the same enclosure?)
3. Do you have access to an application called DiskWarrior?

In terms of going forward, you will want a setup that provides redundancy as hard disk drives and solid state drives both fail, predicting those failures generally proves difficult, and cloud storage has some significant limitations. If you do not want to save the same file multiple times manually (or use a scheduled interval task using a program like CCC), the easiest way to do this is to purchase an enclosure allowing RAID 1 (or setting up software RAID 1, which is less desirable), where each time you save a file, a redundant copy is saved on two separate physical disks (on your desktop, you see one icon, but it saves a mirrored copy). If one disk fails, you replace the failed drive and the remaining good drive can 'repopulate' the now replaced drive. For your most important files, you would want more than two copies as this level of redundancy reduces, but does not eliminate, the risk of data loss. (There are other types of RAID levels that have additional advantages, but they tend to involve more physical disks and a higher price.)

 

[Poncho]

If you use a program like DriveDX that can pull SMART data, what are the specific errors and failures on the malfunctioning drive?

I'd be interested to know what DriveDX pulls up too

 

[ght56]

OP, to show what this can do, here are a few screenshots of specific SMART metrics pulled from a 2.5-inch HDD. This drive is straight-up toast. It has been marked as failed by Drive DX, and it is malfunctioning in actual practice. Seeing the surge in reallocated sector count leaves absolutely zero question as to the nature of this failure, which is hardware failure and the physical HDD itself is where the failure is happening (as opposed to a connection issue, data corruption, a power delivery issue, or failure of the enclosure/bridge.)

SMART is not perfect, but what we might be able to do with it is to determine if this is potentially an issue with the enclosure. Further, if the drive is failing, we might also be able to get a better idea of how severe the failure.

One limit is not all enclosures fully support SMART, and many G-Drive enclosures do not. The only WD enclosures I have are FW800, which do support SMART to allow all individual metrics to be pulled, but I cannot speak to your enclosure (so you need to try this first.) If you cannot pull SMART data from the current enclosure, moving the drive to a different enclosure may be advisable.

In sum, this will hopefully provide a clearer picture of the problem.

 

[Poncho]

Here's one of my external hard drives that DriveDX tells me is failing...

 

[Sossity]

In the future, I'd avoid both Seagate and WD drives.
If I needed a platter-based drive, I'd be looking at Toshiba and HGST (Hitachi), in the 2.5" form factor.

What about solid state drives? portable solid state drives?

 

[Sossity]

Well, have tried plugging in my bad drive, and the light is just blinking on it, diskX does not see it because it is not mounting in macos.

 

[Sossity]

Ok, the bad drive finally mounted, and I ran DiskdriveX and here are the results;

 

[Sossity]

I noticed also, when my mac went to sleep, I touched a key to wake it, and the mac fans started up, but the screen hesitated to light back up, I had to wait a minute first, then it came up, maybe from the hard drive hanging the system.

Edit; now the disk is ejecting ,and os is saying it is not ejecting properly, and dowes not show up in dskdrive or macos.

 

[Poncho]

Ok, the bad drive finally mounted, and I ran DiskdriveX and here are the results;

What? Have you not got any Uncorrectable Errors? Is that it? I/O error? What does it show for Pending Seector Count and Reallocated Sector Count? Have you tried changing the USB cable and/or the power supply if it is a drive with a PSU that goes into the wall outlet?

 

[Sossity]

It looks like I will be needing to get a replacement drive, should I go solid state? or stay with spinning hard drives?

any brands or models?

If I get a replacement drive to get my recovered drive content from, any recommendations? what would be a good option? portable solid state drives? or using bare solid state drives in my own enclosures?

 

[ght56]

An I/O error can sometimes suggest an issue with the enclosure...the drive itself might be fine. I believe it can also suggest an issue with the board (where the data itself is still okay.) At this point, I would normally say that transferring the hard drive to a different enclosure may be worth trying. But some WD drives use a board where the circuit board and bridge to USB are one and the same without a SATA port. I believe this is only certain 2.5 inch drives and, unfortunately, yours appears to be one of them. It also appears that board does not support all SMART metrics, or DriveDX is unable to pull them. Someone with more experience than I in recovery will need to confirm that this a model where the PCB and bridge are integrated, but if this is the case it makes ruling out drive errors where the data itself is still intact a more difficult process.

 

[ght56]

It looks like I will be needing to get a replacement drive, should I go solid state? or stay with spinning hard drives?

any brands or models?

If I get a replacement drive to get my recovered drive content from, any recommendations? what would be a good option? portable solid state drives? or using bare solid state drives in my own enclosures?

If you need 4 TB, you are looking at $600+ for solid state. From a brand perspective, the Samsung 860 Evo is an industry standard and always a good way to go. It would definitely be more reliable, more durable, and have better longevity than a spinning disk drive. That said, you still need to back it up as SSDs can fail and like HDDs they can fail catastrophically with zero warning whatsoever. A 3.5 inch HDD is fine to do the job, and the most cost-efficient.

If a 4 TB SSD is a little too expensive, then I would recommend purchasing two 4TB 3.5-inch HDDs. Brand isn't as important as having two of them. The WD Blue is an inexpensive drive that works (there are only three makers left in the game...choose one and just be sure you have redundant copies.) Then, set them up so you are either A) manually saving your files to both drives, or B) have a system that automatically saves your files to both drives (Carbon Copy Cloner can automate this, but not in real time...a RAID 1 would give you real time and some enclosures can do this automatically, implementing what is known as hardware RAID.)

 

[Poncho]

I would recommend purchasing two 4TB 3.5-inch HDDs.

I agree. SSD is for speed, HDD is for storage.

 

[Sossity]

I had some 3.5 inch drives, but I found them bulky, and not very portable. I live in an area where wildfire could strike at anytime, and when that evacuation order comes in, there is only a small window of time if any at all, to grab my things and go. For this reason, I went to 2.5 inch form factor drives, unplugging and packing away a bunch of 3.5 inch drives in an emergency like fire is not as practical for me. They are also heavier making portability not as easy.

So far, I have had about 3-4 general drives;
1. For movies
2. For all my music, mp3s ripped CDs
3. For all raw photo and video files from digital cameras
4. For general documents like schoolwork, art documentation and receipts and other business stuff. (This is the one that is now giving me trouble).

Having 3.5 inch drives for all this, and a back up of all this would be a total of 8; 3.5 inch drives, and that would be too heavy and bulky for me. I am also in a very small space, dorm room size, and have to combine my office and bedroom, and don't have much desktop space.

I am not trying to argue, but I have had to adapt to my environment.

Would it be a little better to use bare 2.5 inch hard drives and or solid state drives, and swap them in and out of my own enclosures?

I notice alot of aluminum enclosures that are not too expensive, and read that aluminum makes for better heat dissipation.