trying to run AIO on a known corrupt HDD

[Dave009]

Hello ALL! I have been using this tool for eons it seems and it really does wonders...

So I am on Win 10 and have tried a number of ways to get my friends HDD to run AIO as an external drive.

It's a 3.5 running win 7 So just short of swapping out one of my HDD and changing the boot menu I am looking to fix it with AIO externally.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

I am sure this has been discussed in here before but as the newest guy I'm not sure of how to get this issue to come up as a search result.

Thanks much for taking the time to look and offer suggestions.

[Boggin]

If you can plug it in and it gets a drive letter, then open a Command Prompt (Admin) and enter chkdsk x: /r where x is the drive letter.

This will run in the cmd window without the need for a reboot to dismount the volume, but if the HDD has bad sectors then it needs imaging ASAP so as to load onto a new HDD.

However, Windows needs to be booted up on the drive for the repair program to run so you won't be able to run it remotely.

[Dave009]

Thank you Boggin!

Yes it shows up with a drive letter I tried chkdsk x: /r and got no results.

I'm guessing I need to make and image of the disc , then format and reinstall win 7 on it for my friend...

Does that sound about right and who's imaging software do you guys like?

[Boggin]

Did you use the drive letter instead of the x ?

When I plug an ext. drive into this laptop, it comes up as Drive E: so the cmd for that would be chkdsk e: /r

EDIT - I'd put the HDD back into the Win 7 machine to see if it will boot after running the chkdsk, providing it isn't too far gone with bad sectors.

[Dave009]

Funny you should mention that yes I put the wrong drive letter in earlier this am just ran it now
and got the results but they jump off the screen so fast I can't read them

I would but he sent this over from Oregon....

Would it be wise to put it into my tower [5 HDD] and make it the boot drive to test it?

[Dave009]

so as far as I can tell no major issues there.

too fast ...

[Boggin]

It should have stayed on the screen.

I ran a chkdsk e: /r on my ext. HDD and it was taking ages.

Try the chkdsk again but change the parameter to /f

That should still report if there are any bad sectors.

[Dave009]

Thanks Boggin I'll try that didn't see any bad sectors in the 1st paragraph..

I also click the mouse in the cmd window and got it to freeze till I hit back space but still
the last sentence hits the screen and it closes I'll try /f now...

[Boggin]

You could also try the cmd fsutil dirty query x: using your drive letter instead of the x

[Dave009]

I also double checked and I had only been running the /f command so I am running /r now and yes it is creeping along.

[Boggin]

Good - hopefully that will sufficiently repair any corruption.

I don't think it will boot in your machine as the licence is tied to your friend's computer, plus there will be a difference in the drivers to the hardware you have in yours.

[Dave009]

Yes Thanks Boggin, it makes sense that loading it in here [main business reliable computer] might be a cluster bomb of eff's
I'll go check the chkdsk

[kk159]

I would back up the data before running chkdsk

/r checks for bad sectors and it's a lot of read actions, much slower than /f.  If the hdd is about to fail, a chkdsk /r may fail the hdd

Check your hdd SMART data and see if there is anything funny

When running chkdsk on an external device, use diskpart to obtain the correct drive letter

If your hdd is Seagate, I would suggest using SeaTools

[Dave009]

Very Good Tips kk159 thank you!