I recently bought an external hard drive to store my files and connected an older 5TB Seagate drive that had been sitting unused in a closet for several years. A health check reported only 15% health and 88 bad sectors. I was able to copy almost everything to my internal drive, but one disk image file containing about 170GB cannot be opened or copied. Windows reports error 0x800701E3 whenever I try to move it. I only have one compatible cable at the moment, and professional data recovery is currently too expensive. Is there anything I can safely try to recover this file, or should I stop using the drive and seek professional help?
3 Answers
Avoid repeatedly trying to copy the file through the normal file manager, since retries can put additional stress on a failing drive. A bootable recovery environment such as Rescuezilla can make a sector-by-sector clone to another drive, but you will need both drives connected at the same time. Work on the clone rather than the original whenever possible.
HDDSuperClone is another good option because it is designed to handle drives with bad sectors. It can skip damaged areas, retry them intelligently, and recover readable data without constantly hammering the disk. Anything stored in sectors that can no longer be read may be incomplete or unrecoverable. If the drive begins making unusual noises or gets worse, stop and consider professional recovery; that can easily cost several hundred dollars or more.
I’ve heard of HDDSuperClone and plan to try it before considering professional recovery. I know the damaged portions may not be recoverable, but I’d like to do what I can first.
A drive that has been stored unpowered for years may still retain data, but long-term storage does not guarantee that every sector remains readable. Since the health report already shows bad sectors, treat this as an unstable drive rather than an extra backup. Clone it as soon as possible, avoid unnecessary scans and file-copy attempts, and do not write anything back to it. Once the data is recovered, replace the drive and keep multiple independent backups.
I’m surprised it still powered on after being moved around and left unused for so long. I wish I had checked it earlier, but I’ll avoid using it more than necessary now.
I’m not sure what the image contains, but since it is around 170GB I’d like to try recovering it. My mom apparently stored a mixture of old files on the drive without really knowing what was there.