I have spent the past few weeks trying to resolve this problem and all attempts thus far have proved fruitless.
I have attempted all of the commonly-suggested things to do which include:
- Formatting the HDD (I receive an error message, sometimes an I/O error message)
- Creating a new partition (this works, but I am unable to save anything onto the HDD. I have tried creating both small (5GB) and large (931GB / maximum capacity) partitions, and although both are successfully created, they are useless)
- Analysing the disk using testdisk (further error messages)
- Attempted recovering some files using Recuva (HDD was inaccessible - another error message)
Background:
I have had my 1TB portable (Passport) external HDD for just over one year. It has not been dropped, squashed, bumped, etc. - I have taken wonderful care of it as I do with all such items.
I am happy to lose everything on the HDD - I just want to get it back to a working / useable state once more and it appears that, thus far, nothing is working and I'm beginning to doubt that anything will.
I should also add that, once a partition(s) has / have been created, I am still unable to format the HDD.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks.
UPDATE:
I am wondering if removing the HDD from its enclosure - and either using it like I would an internal HDD or replacing the casing - could help matters as I have read that, in a few cases, the enclosure could be failing - any thoughts on this possibility?