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I have a Western Digital 3200JS Caviar Hdd

I have tried everything on this thing, the Western digital tools say that their is a smart error, Fdisk has a non dos partition that has -224mb alocated, and this is a 320gb hdd and FDISK reports it as only being 8024kb, windows failed to format it, it just removes the drive from explorer after trying to format it and can't access it even before then

i don't know what else to do, is their anything i can try

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Brief, practical next steps that won't make recovery harder.

As noted, vendor diagnostics and partition tools can fix some problems — but those steps can also destroy data. If any files matter, stop trying to write to the disk and make a raw image to another drive first. Imaging preserves what remains and lets recovery tools work on a copy instead of the failing media.

Best-practice imaging workflow (Linux/live-USB)

  • Use GNU ddrescue to make a non-destructive copy and a logfile that allows later retries. Example sequence:
    ddrescue -n /dev/sdX /path/to/disk-image.img /path/to/disk-image.log
ddrescue -d -r3 /dev/sdX /path/to/disk-image.img /path/to/disk-image.log
  • Work from the image: mount it read-only, run partition/table recovery, or extract files. This avoids further wear on the original drive.

Recovery and diagnostics after imaging

  • Try TestDisk for partition-table and boot-sector repair, or PhotoRec for file carving if the filesystem is damaged.
  • Use smartctl/smartmontools to read drive attributes and run short non-destructive tests only after data is secured; stress tests can accelerate failure.

When to stop and replace

  • If imaging repeatedly fails or diagnostics show deteriorating health, do not continue forcing the drive. Check warranty/RMA options and consider a professional recovery service for critical data. Never open the drive; that voids warranty and damages internal components.

Useful references: GNU ddrescue (https://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/), TestDisk (https://www.cgsecurity.org/), smartmontools (https://www.smartmontools.org/).

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Member Avatar for KainXS

anybody know anything

Member Avatar for fren

The drive you are working now was formatted in ntfs before so fdisk recognized it as non dos partition. You should delete the non-dos partition in fdisk. Or use a disk utility from the drive manufacturer to delete the partition and format the drive.

The smart error refers to the hard drive which is about to fail. If the above procedure doesn't help, I think you need to replace the drive.

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