Used the Check disk tool, found no sector errors. After that I formatted the entire drive in Windows. (6)Because PhotoRec couldn't get pass a certain sector due to some unknown reason, I decided to low-level format this drive under DOS using SeaTools. I have a RAID 0 configuration, no RAID on this drive because it was on a USB and the usb controller is different from RAID. Maybe the difference is due to Intel RAID Controller vs. Not even passed with repair, just passed without errors. Strangely, under the DOS version the drive passed all tests with no bad sectors. (6)Using SeaTools (by Seagate) for Windows, the drive failed all tests even after the Fix->All Long, it suggested using DOS version of SeaTools to look into the LBAs and attempt to fix the bad sector. dd file and it holds 396GB, pretty sure I have around 300-ish GB of data on this disk so I am convinced that the image produced is the complete hard drive image. (5)Used TestDisk to create an image of the NTFS partition found and put it onto the other working hard drive. The system recognizes the drive now as an internal drive ST3000DM01, not a usb external drive.

(4)This is when I take apart the external enclose and plug the bare-bone drive into my SATA slot. Managed to salvage about 140GB of data out of 396GB of original data. Suspected a bad sectors is causing the hang. Tried two times and arriving to the same result.

(3)Tried using PhotoRec to recover the files, but the PhotoRec process will become unresponsive right about reading/recovering 50% sectors of I have. (2)Used TestDisk to find the lost partition, and found it YAY (Using GPT partition table type, an NTFS labled backup drive), deleted the partition table on the drive, replaced with the one found with TestDisk, no luck, Windows 7 still wants to format it. (1)Got myself a 450w battery-backup surge protector My Windows 7 system could no longer open the hard drive and it wants to format it, I suspected bad sector(s) and corrupted partition table may be the cause of it, so here is what I did. I had a pretty bad power-outage in my neighborhood when I was recording TV onto my drive prior. I have a Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM01 3TB hard drive that used to be in an external enclosure (Seagate External Expansion drive 3TB). Hello Everyone, I posted this on the TestDisk forum figured I have a better chance of getting my answer here at tom's.

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