usb hard drive issue

[drevilcn]

hi everyone,
first post here!

i have an issue with an external samsung usb2 hdd, it has two partitions, one smaller ntfs and one large hfs+ one.

for some time now the hfs+ one is not mounted anymore, the ntfs still appears on the screen and is accessible.
disk utilities wasnt helpful! and now i started to work with disk warrior.

it immediately told me there is a hardware problem and speed was reduced and there is a ever growing number next to it.
first i thought its an error message but as said, it changes and it keeps growing.

can anybody tell me what this number means? is it the number of files, or errors detected? bad sectors?
since its a 640gb disk and most of it used for the hfs+ partition, i hope its not the sectors as it reached 50000ish today, after like 4 days running.

any advice?

best regards

evil

 

[drevilcn]

anybody?

 

[pastrychef]

It sounds like the hard drive is dying. It's a good idea to try and copy whatever files you can still access to another drive before everything is lost.

 

[Macman45]

DW is probably identifying the bad sectors on the drive...That would also explain the slow down. As suggested, it's time to replace the drive.

 

[drevilcn]

as i mentioned, the ntfs partition works fine

DW is still at step 5 "locating directory data" and then the high number, at 64k now.

the question is, should be i be more patient? stick with it, if neccessary for weeks or abort, right now i cant access any files on the hfs+ partition

 

[pastrychef]

Try and let Disk Warrior finish. It may be able to salvage some of your files before your drive dies completely.

 

[Fishrrman]

Questions:
Do you have access to a PC?
Does the drive mount properly on a PC?

Although I've never used it, I understand that there is software out there that will let you mount an HFS+ partition "on the PC side". You might track down this software, install it, and then see if the HFS+ partition becomes mountable on the PC. If it does, copy everything from it to another drive.

Suggestion:
Your problem is an example of why I suggest to folks to NOT create "hybrid" drives (i.e., drives with both Mac and PC formatted partitions on them). All too often, the Mac partition has a tendency to just go.... "POOF!".... and disappear.

In the future, use a Mac drive for Mac things.
Use a PC-formatted drive for PC things.

If you must have a hybrid drive to transfer files, use a specially-purposed drive (or USB flashdrive) for this purpose.

I -WOULD NOT- ever trust important files to a hybrid drive...

 

[drevilcn]

yes, i will try tomorrow with a windows tool to mount it and see if i have access to it, i already stopped the DW process and it said due to the malfunction it couldnt rebuild.

will give an update tomorrow

thx guys