HP xw8600 PC with Windows 7 Ultimate and ESET antivirus all up to date.I have 3 hard drives in my computer --- C: is the operating system, --- F: (2Tb) is for data and --- V: (3Tb) for for backup using Symantec System Recovery 2013 R2 The last time I checked there was about 500Gb of free space on the V: drive. Today I had a backup failure. After rebooting I find that the V: drive has lost its format and name. Windows Explorer says that I should reformat. This same thing happen about 6 months ago also.Disk Manager show the V: HD but without any name and 100% free space.I know I can reformat, but I am more interest in what went wrong.The 3Tb drive has been working with no problems making daily backups.Any suggestions?Could it be that I hit the 2.2Tb limit? Disk Manager show it as a 2794.39 Gb.

Whoever made the drive should have diagnostic software available- I would use it to do a full surface scan. I would also probably replace the drive on general principals, as I suspect the drive is failing.

Chris Bryant wrote:Whoever made the drive should have diagnostic software available- I would use it to do a full surface scan. I would also probably replace the drive on general principals, as I suspect the drive is failing.It passes the extended test which I think is a surface scan test. I also ran chkdsk /f which found a few error and fixed them. From my Google search it looks like the disk lost the MBR/partition table.

I think I'd start by REPLCING the "V" driveBut first Reformat as instructed, then download a drive test program (The manufacturer's is generally good) and let it run for a while, Use the deep scan and let it run overnight.. Or longer. Next: One of the issues with some backup programs is they do not check for space on the target (Backup) drive, so if your back up takes say 2 TB and the Target drive has only 3 TB of space, when you do the NEXT back up it runs over, this is because even if you use "Save with replace" it saves THEN deletes the old, and you do not have the room. Hence.. Crash This crash can get into the part of the drive which SHOULD be protected, the part that holds the name and ID. I've seen it happen with smaller drives. Suggest a bigger Backup Drive.

wa8yxm wrote:I think I'd start by REPLACING the "V" drive+1And.....you aren't set to do an ENTIRE mirror image backup every time, are you ?? That is an unnecessary waste of time and space.

Sam Spade wrote:wa8yxm wrote:I think I'd start by REPLACING the "V" drive+1And.....you aren't set to do an ENTIRE mirror image backup every time, are you ?? That is an unnecessary waste of time and space.I do an incremental backup. Each daily backup is only about 5 to 10Mb

Hard Drive Lost Format and Name | Good Sam Community

Chris_Bryant
Explorer II
Sep 20, 2016
Whoever made the drive should have diagnostic software available- I would use it to do a full surface scan. I would also probably replace the drive on general principals, as I suspect the drive is failing.
TenOC
Nomad
Sep 20, 2016
Chris Bryant wrote:
Whoever made the drive should have diagnostic software available- I would use it to do a full surface scan. I would also probably replace the drive on general principals, as I suspect the drive is failing.

It passes the extended test which I think is a surface scan test. I also ran chkdsk /f which found a few error and fixed them. From my Google search it looks like the disk lost the MBR/partition table.
wa8yxm
Explorer III
Sep 20, 2016
I think I'd start by REPLCING the "V" drive

But first Reformat as instructed, then download a drive test program (The manufacturer's is generally good) and let it run for a while, Use the deep scan and let it run overnight.. Or longer.

Next: One of the issues with some backup programs is they do not check for space on the target (Backup) drive, so if your back up takes say 2 TB and the Target drive has only 3 TB of space, when you do the NEXT back up it runs over, this is because even if you use "Save with replace" it saves THEN deletes the old, and you do not have the room. Hence.. Crash

This crash can get into the part of the drive which SHOULD be protected, the part that holds the name and ID. I've seen it happen with smaller drives.

Suggest a bigger Backup Drive.
Sam_Spade
Explorer
Sep 20, 2016
wa8yxm wrote:
I think I'd start by REPLACING the "V" drive

+1
And.....you aren't set to do an ENTIRE mirror image backup every time, are you ?? That is an unnecessary waste of time and space.
TenOC
Nomad
Sep 20, 2016
Sam Spade wrote:
wa8yxm wrote:
I think I'd start by REPLACING the "V" drive

+1
And.....you aren't set to do an ENTIRE mirror image backup every time, are you ?? That is an unnecessary waste of time and space.

I do an incremental backup. Each daily backup is only about 5 to 10Mb
1492
Moderator
Sep 20, 2016
This can also be caused by a USB controller or HD controller failure which is not allowing WIN to read the drive properly. First, try using a different USB port on the PC. If still reading similar, than most likely the issue is within the drive itself.

I'm not a big fan of incremental backups as you need the original backup, and all incremental backups to successfully restore. Any one incremental backup which gets corrupted, could potentially cause the restore to fail.

Differential backups only require the original backup, and the latest differential backup to restore. Only involves 2 files, instead of how many incremental backups were made?
TenOC
Nomad
Sep 20, 2016
1492 wrote:
This can also be caused by a USB controller or HD controller failure which is not allowing WIN to read the drive properly. First, try using a different USB port on the PC. If still reading similar, than most likely the issue is within the drive itself.

The V: drive in an internal drive.
bob_nestor
Explorer III
Sep 20, 2016
Sometimes the MBR gets trashed on a disk. It contains the disk partition setup and boot blocks if the disk is bootable. The good news is it's usually possible to restore the MBR by just running fdisk, provided you remember how the disk was partitioned. In this case I suspect the entire disk was allocated to be a FAT-32 partition and the remaining three disk partition entires were unused. You'll know if the MBR was blown when you run fdisk if it doesn't identify any FAT-32 partitions in any of the 4 slots. If this is the case then fixing it with fdisk usually causes the entire volume and its contents to magically reappear.
1492
Moderator
Sep 20, 2016
TenOC wrote:
1492 wrote:
This can also be caused by a USB controller or HD controller failure which is not allowing WIN to read the drive properly. First, try using a different USB port on the PC. If still reading similar, than most likely the issue is within the drive itself.

The V: drive in an internal drive.

In that case, did you swap SATA cables? Try a different SATA port on the motherboard?
TenOC
Nomad
Sep 21, 2016
bob_nestor wrote:
Sometimes the MBR gets trashed on a disk. It contains the disk partition setup and boot blocks if the disk is bootable. The good news is it's usually possible to restore the MBR by just running fdisk, provided you remember how the disk was partitioned. In this case I suspect the entire disk was allocated to be a FAT-32 partition and the remaining three disk partition entires were unused. You'll know if the MBR was blown when you run fdisk if it doesn't identify any FAT-32 partitions in any of the 4 slots. If this is the case then fixing it with fdisk usually causes the entire volume and its contents to magically reappear.

I have 3 disk not one and all 3 HD only have one partition and which is formatted as NTFS.

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