Member Avatar for blade_costic

i have an external hard drive which i have partitioned. since then i have done virus scan and defragmentation on it. recently i have found part of the f drive (160gb) the write or read is stuck on part of it. so what do i do? do i have to reformat it? i dont think its a hardware problem.

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A partial read/write hang on a partition usually means either filesystem corruption or failing sectors. Further writes will reduce the chance of recovery, so stop using the affected volume. 's Disk Management suggestion is correct as an initial check (run diskmgmt.msc) to see whether Windows reports the partition as RAW, unallocated, or simply slow.

If any data on that 160 GB slice matters, preserve it before trying repairs. Best practice is to image the whole disk with a tool that tolerates bad sectors (GNU ddrescue) and keep the rescue log so attempts can be resumed. Example workflow from a Linux live USB:

# quick first pass, skip slow retries
ddrescue -n /dev/sdX /path/to/image.img /path/to/image.log

# aggressive second pass (retries)
ddrescue -d -r3 /dev/sdX /path/to/image.img /path/to/image.log

Also capture SMART data (smartctl -a /dev/sdX) or use CrystalDiskInfo/SeaTools on Windows to check reallocated/pending sectors. If SMART shows non-zero or growing reallocated/pending counts, the drive is unreliable and replacement is the safest long-term choice.

If the data is expendable, a repair path is: run chkdsk F: /r from an elevated Windows prompt to attempt filesystem repair and sector recovery, then delete/recreate the partition and perform a full format (not quick) so the OS can map bad sectors. Note that chkdsk and full formats can stress failing hardware and may not fix underlying mechanical problems.

Tying back to prior replies: 's partition-delete approach is fine only when data is already safe. is correct about the risk of reuse—if diagnostics and SMART point to physical failure, replace the drive rather than trust it for important data.

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Member Avatar for JorgeM

What do you mean stuck? You get errors when you try to write? If you dont have any issues with reformating the drive, then that is a good idea. If you need to modify the partitions, then do that first using the Disk Management console.

Member Avatar for blade_costic

it wont 100% complete. must be some damaged sector i dont know.

Member Avatar for JorgeM

Did you try deleting the partition?

Member Avatar for hotmatrixx

If that happened to me, it woudl become a 160gb doorstop. you can buy new 500gb hdd for less than $100, would you really trust you data on a sub-par drive? Just my 2 cents, and I have been burned with this issue 2x. Never again...

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