The drive's blue power light turns on, the computer recognizes it, and all of the folders and files appear normally. However, even small files take a very long time to open. Audio and video playback starts but freezes after about a second, and copying files to another drive is extremely slow or stops partway through. A health check shows a large number of bad sectors, including more than 1,300 that could not be remapped. The drive is old and has been left connected to a previous computer for years. I mainly want to recover the data onto a new drive and would appreciate advice on the safest approach. If the drive is physically failing, is professional recovery the only realistic option?
3 Answers
For a DIY attempt, clone or image the entire drive rather than copying files normally. Use a destination drive at least as large as the source, along with a tool designed to skip bad sectors, such as HDDSuperClone or GNU ddrescue. Work from the clone afterward so the failing disk is accessed as little as possible.
If you decide to try a regular file copy first, Robocopy can resume interrupted transfers and you should prevent the computer from sleeping. However, with this many bad sectors, a failing-drive cloning tool is generally safer and more effective than repeatedly opening individual files.
The drive is failing and cannot realistically be repaired. If the files are irreplaceable, stop using it and contact a professional data-recovery service; repeated attempts can make the condition worse and recovery may be expensive.
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