Can’t activate dynamic disk

[stephen2005]

For some reason I can't activate a dynamic disk connected to my PC via a USB hard disk enclosure. It has activated previously without any problems.

When I check the event logs, I get this message every time I try to activate the disk: dmio: Harddisk2 write error at block 2930277167: status 0xc0000015

 

[goombawaho]

Please define what "activate a dynamic disk" means to you. Are you talking about simply seeing it in explorer or my computer, in disk management - what??

 

[Lemon13]

check the disk with the manufactor testtool

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/ar...ved-Converting-Basic-Disks-Dynamic-Disks.html

M. Knorr

MCSE, MCTS, MCSA, CCNA

 

[stephen2005]

I can see it under disk management. But I can't activate it from there to make it show up in Windows explorer

 

[goombawaho]

^^^ I would test the drive first (just to be sure) and then see if there is a partition on the drive in disk management.

Or even try to format it as NTFS using the manufacturer's tool.

 

[stephen2005]

I can't format it because I have data on it that I don't want to lose.

I'm running the manufacturer's tools to test it at the moment.

 

[stephen2005]

The drive passed all the tests with the manufacturer's tools

 

[goombawaho]

Next step is to hook it up to another PC and see if the drive is visible as a drive letter and you can read/write files to it.

 

[stephen2005]

I tried that, but I ran into the same problem of not being able to activate the disk. I'm using a tool called Recover My Files Professional Edition at the moment to see if I can recover the data on the drive. It will probably take another 12 hours or so to complete a full scan of the drive.

 

[goombawaho]

It's not likely a BIOS issue that you can't see the drive because you used to be able to see it and you said it wouldn't work on another PC.

That's very strange. What is the brand/model??

I would take the external enclosure apart and hook the drive up directly inside the computer or to one of these

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002

and see if it's not the cabling in the enclosure. My bet is on the enclosure electronics/connections/cables.

 

[stephen2005]

It's a 1.5 TB Western Digital caviar green. I did e-mail the manufacturer, but received no response so far.

I already tried hooking it up via my eSata docking station. I can't recall if it was detected in the bios, but it definitely didn't show up under disk management or Windows Explorer.

I think the odds are the data recovery program will probably allow me to recover my data onto another drive. I can see it has picked up the file structure of the drive which is a good sign.

 

[goombawaho]

Something funky is going on. Nothing adds up in my mind. See if you can get WD to tell you WHY and/or replace the drive.

 

[stephen2005]

I have my doubts that it's a problem with the drive itself. The manufacturers tool didn't turn up any problems. I think the problem originated with a dirty shutdown. That and the vagaries of dynamic drives. It would be pretty confident that I reformatted the drive as a basic drive, it would probably work ok.

 

[goombawaho]

Another sad story in the big computer world.

 

[stephen2005]

Well fortunately the story had a happy ending. The data recovery tool allowed me to recover all of my data. Now I'll just reformat the disk to a basic disk and everything should be back to normal.

 

[goombawaho]

Keep an eye on it for a few weeks before you back any important data up onto it. I personally wouldn't trust it much.

 

[stephen2005]

Yeah, that's probably a good idea.