Problem with external drive...

Dinarius

I have a 10Tb LaCie external HD connected to my Windows 10 desktop.

Without having the need to check anything, I've been copying files from my desktop to this drive for the last two years.

Just now I ran SyncToy and the files failed to copy.

When I looked in the folder that they should have copied to, it was empty.

When I then looked in every other client folder, dating back to 2006, they were all empty too - every single one of them

It's almost like someone had access to my computer and deleted everything! :eek:

In This PC, the LaCie drive is showing as having 6.21Tb free of 10Tb, which is about right. But, I can't find a single file.

Before I format it and start copying everything again, is there anywhere I should be looking?

Thanks.

D.

Dinarius

Ps.

I recently installed Acronis to check the health of the drive in my desktop that feeds this LaCie drive. It was showing failure. It's now showing 100%, so somehthing mus have fixed the fault.

But, in Acronis, the LaCie shows as greyed out because S.M.A.R.T. parameters are not supported for this disk, apparently.

Could Acronis have had anything to do with my LaCie data disappearing, or becoming invisible?

Thanks.

D.

CatInABox

Any chance the files are just hidden? Perhaps the back-ups are saved in a format that Windows thinks should be hidden by default, so maybe turn off that setting?

I recently had to recover video files from a disk that had it's partition nuked by a windows upgrade, I used PhotoRec to do it, as almost every other program I could find was a limited trial.

Ignore the fact that it's called PhotoRec, it'll recover almost every file type.

Either way, I'd take a long hard look at using that drive as a sole back-up from now on.

Dinarius

Thanks.

As it happens, they are all RAW photo files, with a few Jpegs for reference.

If the free disk space indicator is correct, then I presume (and hope!) that they're hidden.

I try PhotoRec unless someone can recommend an easier way of revealing them.

Many thanks.

D.

Ps. I update Windows 10 by default, so maybe that is indeed the problem.....or Acronis?

Dinarius

I unplugged the USB cable for the LaCie in order to check it with my Windows 7 laptop.

As I'd hoped all files were present and correct.

I then plugged the USB cable back into the Windows 10 desktop.

Once again, all files were present and correct.

I then ran SyncToy and it copied across the edited files from the desktop drive.

I have no idea why the LaCie (or the desktop) threw this wobbler. But, I wish I did so that I could prevent it from happening again.

Thanks.

D.

Fysh

Personally I used to love Synctoy but it has some erratic behaviour when it goes wrong that led me to stop using it and revert back to the command-line joy of robocopy. It sounds to me like there may have been an issue with the drive mounting/permissions that resolved when you disconnected and reconnected the drive. Check your event logs to see if there are any partition related messages.

Dinarius

Fysh wrote: »

Personally I used to love Synctoy but it has some erratic behaviour when it goes wrong that led me to stop using it and revert back to the command-line joy of robocopy. It sounds to me like there may have been an issue with the drive mounting/permissions that resolved when you disconnected and reconnected the drive. Check your event logs to see if there are any partition related messages.

Fysh,

I just had a look at the Event Viewer and there may be something there....

Under Critical, my (possibly) faulty 2Tb internal drive is mentioned. Though, as I wrote about, it's now showing 100% under Acronis.

But, under Warning, there are 7,343 listed during the last 7 days!!

If I click on "View all instances of this event", I get the following:

Level: Warning (1000s of these)

Time and Date: (1000s of these)

Source: DNS Client Events (One) or Device Setup Manager (One) or NTFS (1000s of this one)

If I highlight NTFS it says: "The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur in VolumeID: Q:, DeviceName: /Device/Harddisk/Volume 18" A device which does not exist was specified."

As it happens, the LaCie is Q.

So, does it have a fault too?

What is not being able to flush data?

Thanks.

D.

Dinarius

http://www.eventid.net/display-eventid-140-source-Microsoft-Windows-NTFS-eventno-11330-phase-1.htm

Here's what a quick Google threw up.

Translate please.

Thanks.

D.

Fysh

"Flushing the transaction log" essentially means committing changes to a disk. When dealing with disks connected over USB, Windows will tend to batch operations rather than carrying them out in real-time - for example, if you've got a USB stick with an activity LED, you probably notice that when you select the "Safely eject device" option to unplug it the LED goes bananas for a few seconds. That's the transaction log being flushed and pending changes to the disk being applied.

If you're seeing a lot of errors like that, and particularly if you're seeing files on the filesystem "disappear", it could be that the disk is having problems - or it could be that the adapter that provides the USB to SATA bridge in the LaCie box is failing, and that's what's causing the problems. It's not uncommon for this to happen, and most of the time you can remove the disk from the enclosure and connect it internally to retrieve data or continue using the disk. (The exception would be if it's a multi-disk unit, in which case the USB-to-SATA bridge is probably also acting as a hardware RAID controller, in which case you're effectively out of luck in terms of accessing the disks directly). Another possibility is that you're hitting power problems on your system which are causing instability when moving data to USB-connected devices, but if that's the case you should be seeing problems with other USB-connected devices as well, not just the LaCie box.

The LaCie box you've been sold is sold as a single device, so they generally don't like you opening it up to get at the disks. I've had arguments with external drive vendors before about whether I should be allowed to remove the drive from the enclosure to attempt data recovery prior to sending it off for warranty repair/replacement, and it can go either way. If you've got those events in your event log, they should be enough to have a conversation with their warranty support team about getting the box replaced, if it's still in warranty. As a precaution I'd see about getting any important data copied to another device, because the warranty repair process may require you to effectively wipe the disk before sending it back.

Hopefully the above is reasonably clear - let me know if any of it sounds like gibberish and I'll try to clarify

Dinarius

Fysh,

Thanks for that.

It would seem (from what a Google throws up) that the Event 140 can also relate to "hot" disconnections. i.e. I either switched off/on the LaCie while something else was going on (quite possibly), or I disconnected its USB connection at an inappropriate time (which I definitely know I didn't do - its permanently connected).

What is the best way to handle the power switch on the LaCie?

1. Should it be always on?

2. Should I only switch it on when I am about to do a backup?

3. If I only turn it on when I'm doing a backup, should I then wait until the computer is turned off before I turn off the LaCie?

Thanks.

D.

Fysh

To be on the safe side, the power switch should stay on until you have confirmed that the disk is not visible in your OS. If you use the taskbar "Safely remove device" icon to eject the disk, the pop up message saying that the device has been successfully removed would be enough. If you want to double-check, you can use the Disk Management MMC snapin (diskmgmt.msc, must be run with administrative permissions) to see all connected disks.

Depending on how often you take backups and whether that happens on an automatic or manual basis, you can either leave it connected and powered on all the time, or disconnect it when not in use. I'd suggest physically unplugging the USB cable after you eject the drive, because disconnecting the drive uncleanly is less bad than powering it off uncleanly (though neither are ideal).

Dinarius

Fysh,

Thanks.

I just ran SyncToy on this drive.

All went well.

I now want to eject the drive as you suggest.

I also have a small, portable USB HD connected. If I click on Safely Remove Hardware, and click on this portable drive, I get the message, "Safe to Remove Hardware" immediately. So, I did.

If I do the same for the LaCie, I get the following message: "Problem ejecting USB attached mass storage device. Windows is unable to stop the device. Don't remove this device while it is still in use. Close any programs using this device and then remove it."

If I open Task Manager and manually close LaCie Desktop Manager and try again, I get the same message.

What could be running that is connected with the LaCie and preventing it from closing?

Thanks.

D.

bonzodog2

A Windows Explorer window showing drive contents, or a command prompt open with the current directory being on the drive would do it. If all else fails, shut down, then unplug.

Dinarius

Thanks.

I've just noticed that in File Explorer/This PC, the LaCie appears twice. The other (internal) drives only appear once each.

Each of the two LaCie mentions has an arrow next to it to open the file tree.

Each has the same 34 items within it.

Is this normal?

Thanks.

D.

Fysh

Hmm. That's odd. Best thing to do is grab Process Explorer from the SysInternals site, then check for any open handles to the drive assigned to your LaCie disk. That should tell you what's doing it. If it's explorer.exe, it will probably be due to the same problem as before i.e. Windows can't write the pending changes to the disk (but you can confirm this by checking the logs for relevant entries).

Do you always use the same USB port for the LaCie drive?

Dinarius

Fysh,

Thanks.

Yes, it's permanently connected to the same USB port.

As it happens, I left the drive alone until it went into its preset sleep mode (five minutes) and I was able to eject it then.

The LaCie desktop manager says that all the drives are working fine.

I'll keep an eye on the double listing in This PC. But, it doesn't seem to be doing any harm.

Thanks again.

D.

Dinarius

Update:

This computer is used for nothing but editing RAW image files.

I had the faulty drive replaced. The new one seems fine.

However, the other issues were still present - all folders in the LaCie external drive disappearing, though space used was still showing the presence of files; Difficulty copying from a camera memory card (via a card reader) to a folder on the computer; difficulty Ejecting the LaCie so I could turn it off; etc...etc...

The ONLY thing I had done to the machine in the last two weeks was install Acronis.

I uninstalled Acronis this morning, as well as running CCleaner to remove any leftovers.

It is since running like a train.

As is obvious from my contribution to this thread, I am not qualified to say that Acronis was the reason for my problem, but is sure looks that way.

Thanks all.

D.

Dinarius

Fysh,

Sorted, I think.

Another Google threw up talk of 32bit/64bit issues on Macs (I'm Windows 10 x64) and that the only way to solve this was to install the most recent version of LaCie Desktop Manager (this is the software that manages the LaCie HD) so that it could handle x64 bit machines.

I checked my version and it was 2.3.0. I then found that the most recent version is 2.8.0. (The update feature is poor, so this was never going to happen automatically.)

I installed 2.8.0. and it's now running like a train. The Safely Remove Hardware works everytime and immediately also.

So, happy days.

Thanks for your help.

D.

Fysh

Glad to hear you got it all sorted - thanks for posting the details of the fix, will be helpful if anyone else runs into a similar problem in future