Member Avatar for daled

I have a Maxtor external hard drive that windows doesn't recognize the name that I named the drive nor the contents of the drive. Bought software ($200) called VirtualLab to get the data and when it runs it gets an error message "read error encountered at sector 12345 on the disk "disk 6". The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error. Can anyone give me some direction. Thanks in advance.

  • 3 Contributors
  • 7 Replies
  • 118 Views
  • 4 Days Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by hughv

Dani AI

Generated

Quick, ordered steps that avoid making the situation worse (addressing points from and the suggestions from and ):

First checks (non-destructive)

  • Swap the USB cable and try a different USB port or another PC. If the enclosure uses an external power brick, make sure it is seated and powered. A bad cable or USB bridge is a common culprit and is cheap to rule out.
  • Do not initialize or format the disk if Windows asks. That can overwrite partition metadata and make recovery harder.

Gather diagnostics (do not write to the failing disk)

  • Boot from a Linux live USB (no install). Use SMART to see if the drive reports hardware issues, and look in the system logs for USB or I/O errors. If the drive shows many reallocated sectors, high pending sectors, or timeouts, that indicates failing media.
  • If the drive is recognized but unstable, make a full image to another healthy drive before attempting repairs. Imaging preserves current state and lets you retry recovery methods without further stressing the original disk.

Recommended tools and safe workflow

When to stop and call a pro

  • If the drive makes clicking, repeated spin-up attempts, or SMART shows severe failure, stop and consult a professional lab. Continued attempts can further damage platters and reduce recovery chances. If data is critical, prioritize imaging by a specialist rather than more DIY attempts.

Recommended Answers

All 7 Replies

Member Avatar for hp26142

Has you drive letter for your external Hard drive been changed from the orginal letter ?

Member Avatar for daled

Has you drive letter for your external Hard drive been changed from the orginal letter ?

Yes, it was originally named as "Maxtor" and windows assigned the drive letter in brackets, which would change sometimes if I added another drive, I'm pretty sure. Now it assigns a letter only, windows scans the drive on startup, but shows no files within the drive. No noises/smoke or unusual physical indication of problem.

Member Avatar for hughv

Have you run chkdsk /f on this drive?
I'm new here-apparently the sticky about no support questions in this forum is no longer valid?

Member Avatar for daled

I have tried but get no results. CHK DSK/ won't acknowlede the drive. It shows up as drive N but that's it. Also tried through properties of the N drive to run error checking, but when you choose a box to run the check, nothing happens, no error msg, nothing. Ideas?

Member Avatar for hughv

just to be sure:
In the run box, type: chkdsk /f

Member Avatar for daled

just to be sure:
In the run box, type: chkdsk /f

You can't select the drive (N) in run box, just the C drive. Right?

Member Avatar for hughv

Sorry:
chkdsk /f n:

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.