Hard Drives Repeatedly Converting to RAW

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  1. Posts : 8
    Windows 10 Pro
       #1

    Hard Drives Repeatedly Converting to RAW


    Greetings! I have learned a lot from these forums, but have never been so perplexed as to need a separate topic. I am at my wits end and would appreciate some brainstorming help. Early last year (March 2021) I built a nice fast PC using an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X CPU, 128 GB DDR4 G.Skill RAM, ASUS ROG Strix X570-E Gaming motherboard, Corsair Power Supply RM 750W CP-9020055-NA, a Seagate Firecuda 520 2TB NVMe SSD for my boot drive, a WD 4TB SSD where I installed programs and two Seagate 12TB IronWolf Pro HDDs run in Raid 1 to hold my files. My files consist of files that are on Dropbox and OneDrive. Everything was great until one day in November 2021, my Raid drive(s) containing my files failed to show up in Explorer, but were visible in Bios and in Disk Management as RAW. I was in a panic and needed a PC and initially thought it was my motherboard, because the Ethernet port was not working AND because the Raid drives were not working. So...

    ...I ordered a new motherboard (ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus (Wi-Fi), ordered a new Samsung 980 Pro 2TB NVMe drive for my boot drive, a new PNY CS900 4TB SSD for Programs and two new Seagate 12 TB IronWolf drives for files in Raid 1. and basically build a new PC, with the exception of the CPU, RAM and Power Supply. Reinstalled Windows 10 Pro, reinstalled programs and relinked Dropbox and Onedrive to my new Raid drives. Fast forward two months later (i.e. a few days ago) and boom...same failure. The Raid drives went RAW...

    So, I looked through all (or most) of the entries here regarding NTFS disks turning RAW and tried everything. I am fortunate that all of my files are on Dropbox and Onedrive. I am able to reformat the drives and relink Dropbox and Onedrive, but even after only installing one hard drive, not in Raid, formatting to NTFS and relinking Dropbox and Onedrive, the drive (actually, all four drives, not in any Raid array, on different attempts) will go back to RAW after a reboot.

    I wondered if one of my cloud files had a virus, but I have an older PC that has all of the same Dropbox and Onedrive files synced and have had no problems on the PC, which I built in 2013. So, I do not believe any of the files in Dropbox or Onedrive have a virus that is causing this.

    Does anyone have any ideas (if you read this far)?! The ONLY thing I can think of is that somehow my power supply may be faulty? Despite all my reading, I just don't understand enough about WHY a drive may be caused to lose NTSF recognition.

    Thank you SOOOOO much to anyone who read this far and for any help...
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 41,366
    windows 10 professional version 1607 build 14393.969 64 bit
       #2

    A RAW file system is reported when Windows cannot read the drive.

    The files may be fine.

    And the files may be recovered using an alternative operating system such as Ubuntu / Linux.

    Test the drives by performing the following steps:

    With large size drives these may take substantial time so plan to test overnight and the next day.

    a) Hard Drive Tune (free or trial version)
    HD Tune website
    Post images or share links for results on these tabs:
    a) Health
    b) Benchmark
    c) Full error scan

    Sea Tools for Windows:
    SeaTools (Windows) |
    Seagate

    SeaTools | Seagate Support US
    Post images or share links for the long generic test

    The HD Full error scan and Sea Tools long generic tests can run simultaneously.

    If there was no power loss with unexpected shutdown and restart then continue with these steps:

    If the drives pass the above tests then for recurrent RAW plan to run diskpart > clean all

    Erase Disk using Diskpart Clean Command in Windows 10

    If there are recurrent RAW after the clean all then replace the disk drive.

    If there was unexpected power loss then consider an Uninterruptible Power Source (UPS).
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 11,609
    Windows11 Home 64bit v:23H2 b:22631.2861
       #3

    Hi @Whistleboy,

    Welcome to Tenforums.

    This to me appears to be an incompatible hardware problem. Are you putting those 12TB HDDs inside a dock?

    Check the specifications of the dock - the per bay handling capacity. Can it handle 12TB/bay?

    Example: I have a four bay dock that can handle 12TB in all. That means it can handle only 3TB HDD in a single bay (4x3TB = 12TB)

    What happens when I put two 4TB HDDs in two bays - be it in Raid mode or just single mode. When the data exceeds 3TB a wrap around occurs. That means the data exceeding 3TB will start writing from the beginning of the HDD thereby destroying the existing MBR and partition tables. The drive/s will become RAW at that point..

    I think that this is what is happening in your case. The per bay capacity may be less than 12TB resulting in the wrap around when data input to the HDD exceeds the per bay capacity.

    Just plug in your HDD inside your Desktop and feed data exceeding 12TB. It will refuse to take in more than 12TB saying no space. Do the same with single 12TB HDD inside the dock. Feed more than 12TB data. BAM! The HDD will become RAW.

    Check, check,check and tell me if I am wrong .
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 8
    Windows 10 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #4

    Very interesting insights from you both…two things I’ve never considered. I’ve actually wondered if the large drive capacities had something to do with it, given all four drives independently seem to be having problems. I don’t have them in any “bay” to my understanding other than a normal SATA slot in my tower. Also, my total Dropbox and OneDrive files do not exceed 4 TB…nothing close to the 12 TB disks. That said, I am going to buy and install a smaller capacity drive to see if that helps.

    I am away from my PC for the long weekend, but will try all of the suggestions and report back. Truly grateful for your time!
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 11,609
    Windows11 Home 64bit v:23H2 b:22631.2861
       #5

    OK, you are not having a dock and the 12TB HDDs are not plugged into the dock. Then my ramblings in the previous post does not apply. ( I have seen many cases where the users without knowing the per bay capacity of their old docks used large capacity drives in their limited capacity docks turning those RAW and coming to these forums requesting data recovery)

    As you said try with smaller capacity drives and also check for the capacity limitations for the SATA controllers used in the motherboard. Most modern motherboard SATA controllers can handle large capacity drives per SATA port but how large is the question. ( In my prime days most motherboards could handle only 2TB large HDDs)
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 2,800
    Windows 7 Pro
       #6

    I don't know about IronWolfs, I forgot Seagate a long time ago. Maybe Western Digital Gold / Purple / Black...
      My Computers


  7. Posts : 494
    Win 10 Pro x64 versions
       #7

    @Whistleboy,

    I would suspect that you might be experiencing a problem with your storage controller driver. Uninstall the driver, reboot, and then reinstall it.
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 8
    Windows 10 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #8

    Ok, finally back at my PC. Before I left, I had Quick Formatted one of the 12TB drives and left it to download my files from Dropbox and OneDrive. When I got home today I did some investigating and discovered "Manage Storage Spaces" (because I didn't know about it!) I had somehow never come across this area of Windows OS. Anyway, it showed a Storage Pool that was supposed to be my original Two-Way Mirror, but showed one drive with a green check mark and another with a yellow warning exclamation. Note, the drive with the yellow exclamation was now sitting on my desk, not connected to the PC. Correct me if I am wrong, but I am guessing that having a drive go bad and having the pool only show one of the two drives caused problems...caused the one good drive to go RAW somehow. I decided to reboot and repeated the issue I described above, where the drive turned RAW upon reboot.

    I purchased an 8TB Toshiba X300 drive to use as my D: Files drive. My current working solution was to unplug the 12TB drive, plug in the new 8TB, reboot, initialize the new disk as a "Simple (no resiliency)" drive and give it the same "D: FILES" name as I had previously name my two-way mirror. The storage pool now shows the one drive and no warnings. I set up the drive to start downloading my Dropbox and OneDrive files and left it for about an hour. Upon holding my breath and rebooting the system, everything came back up fine...no conversion of the new disk to RAW.

    The only thing I can think that led to this whole issue is that I had one of the two 12TB drives go bad in the two-way mirror which caused a problem because of the Raid/Pool setup. In fact, one of the 12TB disks will not read at all and definitely SOUNDS like it has some mechanical problem, but the other three seem fine. I just find it odd that the failure of one drive in a two-way mirror would cause this problem when I thought the whole point of the redundancy was to safeguard from such problems. Any thoughts?
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 41,366
    windows 10 professional version 1607 build 14393.969 64 bit
       #9

    Please download and install Hard Disk Sentinel (free or trial version)
    Hard Disk Sentinel - HDD health and temperature monitoring
    Download Hard Disk Sentinel
    Hard Disk Sentinel Trial version - HDD health and temperature monitoring

    Post images on these tabs for each drive: (if possible include the problematic drive)

    Overview
    Temperature
    SMART
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 8
    Windows 10 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #10

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      My Computer


 

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