external drive partitions partially displaying but cannot be accessed


  1. perfection
    Posts : 75
    windows 10
       New #1

    external drive partitions partially displaying but cannot be accessed


    My external drive has malfunctioned and one by one each of the 3 partitions (and their content) do not show up in explorer. I do not believe that the disk is dead - it is whirring up, indicator light blinks and all i see is a seek bar that takes forever.
    Here is a screenshot.

    external drive partitions partially displaying but cannot be accessed-picture1.png

    Can someone recommend what i can try? I cannot access chkdsk function or format on any of the partition
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  3. jumanji
    Posts : 11,629
    Windows11 Home 64bit v:23H2 b:22631.3374
       New #2

    Hi @perfection

    Please provide the following information:
    1. Make, Model No, capacity. of the external disk. File system if you know.

    2. Post a full screenshot - not a truncated one- of Windows Disk Management with only your faulty disk plugged in.
    Invoke Windows Disk Manangement, Hide Console Tree, Action Pane. Then View > Top > Disk list (This will show the partition style of the disk/s) as per the guidelines in the following tutorial. Do read and do.
    How to Post a Screenshot of Disk Management

    3. Download, install and run the trial version of Hard Disk Sentinel Hard Disk Sentinel Trial version - HDD health and temperature monitoring
    Select your External disk Ít will show an overview of the disk - its health. Post a screenshot.

    The disk spinning is not an indication of its health. From your description I guess that your disk has developed bad sectors and has gone RAW - File system corruption due to bad sectors. CheckDisk will not run on a RAW disk that has no drive letter. Running CheckDisk on a raw disk that has a drive letter can further corrupt the drive making the disk worse.
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  4. perfection
    Posts : 75
    windows 10
    Thread Starter
       New #3

    The disk spinning is not an indication of its health. From your description I guess that your disk has developed bad sectors and has gone RAW - File system corruption due to bad sectors. CheckDisk will not run on a RAW disk that has no drive letter. Running CheckDisk on a raw disk that has a drive letter can further corrupt the drive making the disk worse.

    Yes, this is exactly what has happened.
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  6. jumanji
    Posts : 11,629
    Windows11 Home 64bit v:23H2 b:22631.3374
       New #4

    Hi @perfection

    If you want to proceed further and explore the possibility of recovering data, you have to answer the queries raised in my post #2, and post the screenshots asked for.

    I shall log in next my tomorrow morning that is 10 hrs from now. ( My local time is midnight now. So I am retiring for the day now.)
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