Resolved Enclosed Hard Drive becoming RAW after SATA

Have a BLAX ThermalTake single-slot SATA mount. Been using a drive in this mount for some time. 1.5tb, two partitions of equal size.

Moved drive to internal SATA today to run a SMART check. The drive was recognized, but its file system was RAW. And then I activated it while perusing the context menu for an explanation. Probably a mistake.

Moved drive back to BLAX mount, and the file system remains RAW. Tried to inactivate the partition through diskpart, but for some reason this won't work. I am at a loss as to what to do here.

So I calmly and quickly registered to this forum and started downloading an image of a Linux LiveCD. I need that data, dammit.

 

You could also try SystemRescueCD though I am a little uncertain about your data.

 

If its critical, I encourage to create a mirror image of the drive on a new drive & then work on the mirror image.

 

Hard Drive Shrinking

Hi. Had a problem with a USB-enclosed drive going RAW on me when I removed it from the enclosure and hooked it directly up to SATA.

I have good news. With the help of http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk ,
I have been able to recover one of the two partitions that were lost. The other partition remains beyond my reach, at present.

More importantly, I have just realized that the maximum size of the drive that has been displayed in Windows since this problem began has been 465.78 ~ approximately half the total disk space available. The other half of the drive, upon which my remaining files (should be) partitioned, does not show up in disk management. It does not show up in TestDisk. As far as Windows is concerned, this 1.5tb drive has only 465.78gb on it.

At present I am trying to get SystemRescue CD to work. Does anyone have any other advice for me?

 

Update: I've recovered one of two missing partitions, but a new problem has arisen.

Since the problem began, I've been working with one 500GB drive, according to Windows. The disk size is actually 1.5TB. What has been displayed in Windows appears to correspond exactly to the size of the recovered partition. I cannot locate the other 500GB of capacity (5+5!=15, I know, whatever), not in Disk Management or any other tool.

I was able to solve the problem with the 500GB I CAN see with TestDisk writing a new partition array.

I am still trying to get SystemRescueCD to work. I have the LiveCD, but it crashes to white-noise-ish after I make the first selection in the bootup process.

 

This should have been put in your other post.

http://www.windowsbbs.com/hardware/99584-enclosed-hard-drive-becoming-raw-after-sata.html

 

Thanks Pete.

 

Silly me, I assumed this was a vendor-agnostic problem.

Turns out my drive, 1.5tb 7200.11 Seagate, in addition to having a crippling firmware error that can wipe it right the f*ck out (but that doesn't appear to be the problem I am having) ALSO doesn't play nice with certain Gigabyte motherboards that use a portion of any HD connected to them in SATA to make a mirror of themselves.

For completion's sake:

I had a problem with a 1.5TB losing about 1TB of capacity and having its file system turn RAW.

I recovered usable data from the existing 500GB, using Disktest.

I tried various pieces of software in an attempt to restore my missing ~TB, to no effect.

I tried using SeaTools for DOS's Maximum Capacity function, to no effect (the test failed).

Then I read on Seagate's forum that certain Gigabyte MB can interfere with +TB drives.

Now: I'm waiting for my new kit to come in so I can try the HD on a new MB.

Thanks for the suggestions so far, guys.

 

A solution, at last!

Built up new computer, set the drive in question to boot in IDE mode from the new (non-evil) BIOS, and ran a boot program called HDAT2.

I used a prior version of HDAT2 included on the primary All-In-One distro to reset my drive to max capacity. Then, I used Disktest to re-make the other partition. Easy as pie.