Disk unaccessible after Failed Analyse

Defraggler
1

I recently installed and ran defraggler on my "main drive" partitions (system and others) succesfully, though I was a bit confused, that Windows 7's own defrag told 0% defragment for system partition, and Defraggler told 26%. Then was time for my NTFS external USB disk, and Defraggler failed to analyze it. Ok, after that I tried to check disk health with chkdsk, and it told the fs was RAW and so check could not be performed?!

I navigated into this F: drive, and it showed its directory and files as icons, but all of them were unaccessible resulting "file not found", when was to use any of them. Then I unplugged the USB cable, and reconnected it. Windows detected "Unknown Device", and listed it like that in DevMgr. No more was the disk accessible from Explorer, or any other way. I tried to reboot Windows after that, and on start Windows told it has failed to install device driver for "Unknown Device".

Next step was to boot into Arch Linux, and plug/unplug and see dmesg. Dmesg told "Device descriptor read/64, error -71. Device not accepting address XX... Unable to enumerate USB device on port Y". So it was impossible to access even through Linux. I tried rmmod'ing relevant stuff, and then reloading etc, but no help.

So now the situation seemed like a end of the world for me. I tied a noose to hang myself and leave my earthly career, and disconnected my USB disk's power supply cable. I took a beer went into sauna, so I could hang myself as tidy and a bit drunk.

After sauna and a beer, an hour later, I decided to try one more time. I connected USB psu, it awaken, and connected the USB cable. Windows found the drive, and said no erroneous a word. I tried again to analyze the disk with DF, yet analysing failed, and again was FS "changed" to RAW and not NTFS, and so were the files unaccessible.

Then, a bit more wise about this, I disconnected HD's power, and plugged it again back. Everything was OK again. This happened everytime I repeated the sequence, and only disconnecting power of this external HD (so it will "shut down") fixed the problem. Windows 7 defrag did the task without making any hassle, and I consolidated the drive with it.

You have any idea what may be causing this? Google provided that I'm not the only one with this Defraggler-related problem: http://forum.pirifor...showtopic=29069

2

Decades ago it was prudent to back up the HDD onto an armful of 5.25" floppy discs before risking a defrag.

I still like to know I have a good Partition Image backup before I defrag,

but I never fear to Analyse because I assume that Analyse does NOT write to the disk.

Next step was to boot into Arch Linux, and plug/unplug and see dmesg. Dmesg told "Device descriptor read/64, error -71. Device not accepting address XX... Unable to enumerate USB device on port Y". So it was impossible to access even through Linux. I tried rmmod'ing relevant stuff, and then reloading etc, but no help.

That error is independent of Windows so it must be Hardware or firmware.

Once the drive is accessible to Windows, can you then boot into Linux and see it ?

If so then I suggest that your drive may be compatible with a Windows Analyse,

but is NOT compatible with third party applications such as Defraggler during Analyse,

and the really sad thing is that once the drive is dead it is permanently dead to everything until this drive goes through a power-down/power-up sequence.

If Microsoft's published API's immobilise your drive when they are used by the third party application Defraggler,

then perhaps your drive is at risk from any other third party application.

I suggest :-

Reply with specific identity of the drive - some one here might know of relevant "features" ; and

Check with the drive manufacturer for suitable diagnostic software.