repairing external drive w/Drive Genius

Question

repairing external drive w/Drive Genius

My Maxtor external hard drive apparently has a software problem. It suddenly started being recognized as an unformatted disk. After doing some research I believe it may have a bad superblock. I just purchased Drive Genius after being told that it would work better than Disk Warrior to repair the drive. However, the "repair" function is not available in Drive Genius because the external drive doesn't show up in the "Volume" window. But it does show up in the "Device" window, which allows you to do everything EXCEPT repair it. I started a scan and it came up with at least two bad blocks. But the software may be useless to me if it can't repair the drive. Drive Genius' support and manuals are sorely lacking in terms of mentioning anything about this situation.

Should I take it back and get Disk Warrior instead, or should I take it to my repair shop for data recovery? I REALLY need the stuff on the drive.

Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9) Titanium

Posted on Jul 19, 2006 4:50 PM

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Answer 1

cornelius

Level 6

17,826 points

Jul 19, 2006 5:43 PM in response to Cheryl Kohler

Cheryl:

I am not familiar with Drive Genius so I can't advise on that. Disk Warrior will repair the directory, and does a very good job of it. However, that is the only job DW does. Tech Tool Pro does directory repairs very well, too, as well as a range of other tests and repairs. That is, it scans your HDD for bad sectors, it tests the hardware systems, it repairs volume structures and rebuilds the directory as well as doing disk optimization, in addition to a host of other functions. In other words, I believe it deserves serious consideration.

However, since I do not know exactly what is amiss with your HDD I can't say that TTP will solve your particular issue.

Good luck.

cornelius

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Answer 2

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Jul 19, 2006 5:45 PM in response to Cheryl Kohler

Have you tried repairing the drive with Disk Utility? Try the following:

Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. After DU loads select your OS X volume from the list on the left, click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now shutdown the computer for a couple of minutes and then restart normally.

If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior (3.0.3 for Tiger) and/or TechTool Pro (4.1.2 for Tiger) to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.

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Answer 3

Jul 19, 2006 6:53 PM in response to Kappy

Thanks, Cornelius and Kappy. The problem seems to have something to do with the software recognizing the external hard drive as an unformatted drive. For lack of a more technical or precise explanation, I think it recognizes the hardware aspect of the drive but not its contents.

In Disk Utility, the drive shows up (although not with the name I gave it, just as 152.7 GB Maxtor). But when I select it, all the options under First Aid are greyed out.

Cornelius, I'm worried that whatever is keeping Drive Genius from recognizing it as a Volume will also occur in Disk Warrior if they work the same way.

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Answer 4

cornelius

Level 6

17,826 points

Jul 19, 2006 7:16 PM in response to Cheryl Kohler

Cheryl:

If Disk Utility does not recognize the drive for repair and sees only the device to be formatted, it is unlikely that either DW or TTP would work any better than Drive Genius, although there is no way of knowing for sure, without trying.

The other option, as I see it (Kappy might have better insights here) is to reformat the drive with DU and start over.

Has hardware failure been ruled out as a possibility by Maxtor?

Good luck.

cornelius

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Answer 5

Jul 19, 2006 9:28 PM in response to cornelius

I haven't attempted to get help from Maxtor (the drive is a few years old so I assume there's no warranty left). A friend did some sort of diagnosis and felt pretty confident that it's a software issue and not a hardware issue. I think my next move will be to try to exchange the Drive Genius for the Disk Warrior and if that doesn't work, then I'll get outside help to recover the data.

Thanks for your help.

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Answer 6

cornelius

Level 6

17,826 points

Jul 20, 2006 7:42 AM in response to Cheryl Kohler

Cheryl:

You can't lose with Disk Warrior, even if it doesn't help you in the current situation, although I hope it does.

Good luck.

cornelius

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Answer 7

Jul 20, 2006 5:57 PM in response to cornelius

Update: I exchanged Drive Genius for Disk Warrior. I was able to rebuild the directory on the drive with Disk Warrior and see that most of the files are still there. However, at the point where it was 99% finished replacing the directory, , I got a message saying that there were problems with replacing the directory (or something to that effect) and that I should rebuild again. Then Disk Warrior crashed and when I relaunched it, the drive no longer seemed to be recognized at all. So I gave up and took it to the repair shop for data recovery. But based on how close I came to fixing it, I would certainly recommend Disk Warrior to anyone in this same boat.

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Answer 8

cornelius

Level 6

17,826 points

Jul 21, 2006 9:05 AM in response to Cheryl Kohler

Cheryl:

Sorry that you got so close and were not able to complete the job. Hopefully the folks at the shop can help.

Yes, DW does a great job, as does TechTool Pro. There is another product by SubRosaSoft called Disk Guardian that is supposed to be very good, but I have not tested it, nor have I heard reports from many others.

Good luck.

cornelius

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