Hard drive is corrupted and unreadable what to do? Please Help!

Superfly said:

You are welcome... pity chkdsk did not completely repair the corruption.

The correct way of removing a device is to eject it first (via right-clicking on the drive icon - like one would do with a DVD or mounted iso.)

Thank you and for your advice! Agreed! The one great thing that chkdsk did was it corrected some folders where I was able to access them via Kyhi bootable drive. So, there was still good that came out of it. Well, onward to formating, once I get my new hard drives. So, maybe I can still come across a solution.

mck said:

If the PC is powered on, using Win10's "Safely disconnect and eject media" first, then disconnecting the external HDD while the PC is still powered on is fine. Or shut down the PC and then disconnect the external drive. Either way, is safe.

One important thing to do after removing power to an external hard drive, is to wait at least 5 seconds before moving the drive. This gives the platters in the hard drive time to stop spinning.

EDIT: By the same token, if one needs to power a computer off to do a fresh power on boot for whatever reason, it's a good thing to wait at least 5 seconds before powering the computer back on. This gives the hard drives time to stop spinning before powering on again, and gives the computer's power supply time to cycle down. No sense in a user creating a power flux like condition manually by powering off and immediately powering on again.

mck

Thank you again mck for your advice, time and assistance. That is good to know and I will definitely be more conscious about waiting 5 more seconds.

Going back to our recent discussion, do you think I should get a dual docking station rather than the single? Thermaltake vs Inatek? I know that Thermaltake is more of a name brand, so I was thinking about them, but it does look like that Inatek has good reviews.

@mck

Is this the one you have? Should I get this one over the Inatek?

Amazon.com: Thermaltake Sata HDD USB Docking Station: Computers Accessories

EdTittel said:

I use the Thermaltake myself on my production PC. Haven't had any problems with it since I upgraded to Windows 10 over a year ago. HTH,
--Ed--

Thank you Ed for your input. I appreciate your time and assistance. It looks like I am gravitating towards that one.

mrje1 said:

Thank you again mck for your advice, time and assistance. That is good to know and I will definitely be more conscious about waiting 5 more seconds.

Going back to our recent discussion, do you think I should get a dual docking station rather than the single? Thermaltake vs Inatek? I know that Thermaltake is more of a name brand, so I was thinking about them, but it does look like that Inatek has good reviews.

Welcome. Regarding a dual docking station, I personally prefer getting two single docking stations. Being a troubleshooter type, I like having two in case one goes bad I can still use the other one. With a dual docking station, if it goes bad, that's it. I've also heard about some folks having problems with dual docking stations, but since I've never owned one I can't confirm that one way or the other.

I like Inatek products. I used an Inatek 4 port PCIe to USB3 expansion card and it worked great in my self built Win7 PC for years. The motherboard in that Win7 PC died so that PC is not usable anymore. I helped a friend buy an Inatek single drive USB3 docking station and it has worked very well with no problems at all. So I've had good experiences with Thermaltake and Inateck products.

mrje1 said:

@mck

Is this the one you have? Should I get this one over the Inatek?

Amazon.com: Thermaltake Sata HDD USB Docking Station: Computers Accessories

That Thermaltake docking station looks like it uses USB2. Do not buy a USB2 docking station as it will have really slow data transfer rates compared to USB3 docking stations. USB3 docking stations will work fine plugged into USB2 or USB3 ports. I recommend insuring that the docking station has USB3, UASP and can support large capacity hard drives. (I bought my Thermaltake docking station years ago when USB2 was the norm which is why I have it.)

I would buy this Inateck one:
Amazon.com: Inateck USB 3.0 Hard Drives Docking Station for 2.5 Inch and 3.5 Inch HDD SSD SATA (SATA I / II / III), Support UASP and 10TB Drives, Optimized for SSD: Computers Accessories

If you want to backup external drives, then suggest buying two docking stations. $26 for a second one isn't bad. Just skip eating out one day :).

mck

@mck again thank you for the wonderful advice. Thank you for making it clear. Ok, you sealed the deal. I will get the Inatek one.

You mentioned about using USB3 connections. I built my computer around the end of 2009, so my motherboard has only USB 2.0 slots, with that said, can I still use USB 3.0 PCI or PCIe Cards that you mentioned? Are thy backwards compatible? If so, would using a USB 3.0 PCI or PCIe be faster in a USB 2.0 slot than using the USB 2.0 PCI or PCIe card etc or does it matter?

If you want to backup external drives, then suggest buying two docking stations. $26 for a second one isn't bad. Just skip eating out one day

.

Not sure if you meant internal drives, because from what I see you can't fit a regular external drive into these. If you can clarify further I would appreciate it.

Thank you so much again.

mrje1 said:

@mck again thank you for the wonderful advice. Thank you for making it clear. Ok, you sealed the deal. I will get the Inatek one.

Good choice.

You mentioned about using USB3 connections. I built my computer around the end of 2009, so my motherboard has only USB 2.0 slots, with that said, can I still use USB 3.0 PCI or PCIe Cards that you mentioned? Are thy backwards compatible?

If you buy a USB3 docking station (or any other USB3 device), it will be backwards compatible so will work with the USB2 ports on your motherboard.

If so, would using a USB 3.0 PCI or PCIe be faster in a USB 2.0 slot than using the USB 2.0 PCI or PCIe card etc or does it matter?

Don't quite understand your question but here's what I think you're asking:
Any USB3 device will work if plugged into a USB2 port on your PC. It will work at USB2 speed though. A USB3 device must use a USB3 cable to work at USB3 speed. USB3 cables are identified by a blue color when looking into the connector, while USB2 cables are black.

USB3 device + USB3 cable + USB3 port on the computer = "theoretical" data transfer rates of 10 times faster than USB2 data transfer rates. But real world speeds are about 3 times faster for hard drives and about 3-5 times faster for SSDs depending on the speed of the SSD. USB3 flash drives don't use a cable of course but they are identified by the blue color in their connector. Cheap USB3 flash drives can be as slow as USB2 flash drives so beware when buying USB3 flash drives. There are many counterfeit USB3 flash drives which are actually USB2 flash drives with a blue color in their connector.

If you want USB3 speeds with your older PC, you can buy a 4 port PCIe to USB3 card if your motherboard has an open PCIe slot. This Inateck one from amazon supports USAP which will be compatible with the Inateck USB3 USAP docking station that I recommended. Scroll the webpage to the "Product Description" to see where it says it supports USAP.

Amazon.com: Inateck Superspeed 4 Ports PCI-E to USB 3.0 Expansion Card - Interface USB 3.0 4-Port Express Card Desktop with 15 Pin SATA Power Connector, [ Include with A 4pin to 2x15pin Cable + A 15pin to 2x 15pin SATA Y-Cable ]: Computers Accessories

But note that hard drives plugged into the USB3 docking station which are cabled to a USB2 port on your PC (without buying a PCIe to USB3 adapter card) will work fine in every respect except that they will work at USB2 speeds. USB2 will be able to playback any type of video without any problem, open photos instantly, open and save word processing or spreadsheet files instantly in human perception terms. ----- Where the speed difference comes in is like when you are doing a backup, it could be up to 3 times faster if the docking station is using a USB3 cable plugged into a USB3 port. Or when you are transferring a large file like a movie or a lot of smaller files, USB3 will do that about 3 times faster than USB2 will.

Not sure if you meant internal drives, because from what I see you can't fit a regular external drive into these. If you can clarify further I would appreciate it.

Internal drives are the ones that are installed inside of your PC. They are mounted in a hard drive cage and are not meant to be removed.

External drives are the ones that are connected to the PC using a cable. (USB or eSATA or firewire cable) These external drives either come in enclosures or are plugged into an external docking station.

So if you have only one docking station, you can backup the internal drives to a hard drive in the docking station. But you cannot backup an external drive to another external drive unless you buy a second docking station.

Note that your current external drives (that are in enclosures and connected using USB2 cables) can be used if they are working and you don't have to buy a docking station. Especially since your PC only has USB2 ports. You only need to buy a docking station if the SATA to USB electronics in an enclosure is not working but the hard drive in the enclosure is OK. Or if you want the convenience of just plugging and removing hard drives without fiddling with the cables. Or if you buy a PCIe to USB3 adapter card and want to work at USB3 speeds.

Thank you so much again.

Welcome.

@mck

Thank you again so much for your time, assistance and for the information. Thank you for the clarification, but need a little more.Sorry, if I repeat myself a little etc.

I now have the clarification that I can use USB3 devices with USB2 ports on my motherboard. Just to make sure I got this one though. So, my understanding from what you replied with is that you can use a USB 3.0 PCI or PCIe card inside my open PCI or PCIe slot of my motherboard even though those slots are USB 2.0 without any problems, I just won't get the USB 3.0 speeds. How am I doing so far?

Cheap USB3 flash drives can be as slow as USB2 flash drives so beware when buying USB3 flash drives. There are many counterfeit USB3 flash drives which are actually USB2 flash drives with a blue color in their connector.

Also, what flash drives would you recommend?


I will also reread your reply to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Thank you again. Wonderful help!