Partition not ready. Help

[Gabbynaruto]

First off, I'm not sure if I should post this here, but, it's my best bet since I don't hang around too many forums. Sorry if I'm wrong.

Well, as the title says, in the last couple of days, I've been getting this annoying message:

"D :\ is not accessible. The device is not ready."

This is the first time I encountered this error, and that is why I have issues understanding and fixing it. I have no idea where it came from, it only showed up yesterday morning out of nowhere. I thought I fixed it yesterday when I recreated the partition with the windows installation disk (which, btw, could read all the files within the partition, files that are now lost because I deleted and remade the partition), but, to my surprise it happened again today. My Local Disk D :\ is not accessible for whatever reason. And I can't seem to find anything on the internet about it.

Using Windows 7 Ultimate x64, HDD is Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB, split into two logical partitions, 70GB in C:\ and the rest in D :\

Thanks in advance.

 

[FAST6191]

First you might not have lost the files- almost certainly would not have lost them before you fiddled with the disk but now it is less certain. You want a tool called Testdisk which you can get from http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download though you might also want to read http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step if you have not done this sort of thing before.

After this.... it could be many things from a drive on the way out (not unlikely), to a few random corruptions for some reason (seen it happen, fixed it, warned the person it might only last the month and it is still going strong 3 years later), to a dodgy motherboard, to a dodgy windows install or a program corrupting the partition table (not as common as it was but not unheard of nowadays).

Start with testdisk though.

 

[Gabbynaruto]

It worked. Thank you very much! I had to do it twice though, the first time, it still couldn't open the partition (I may have screwed something up, but, since I repeated the same steps during the second run too, its a bit unlikely). But, all's good when it ends good. Thank you once again for your help!

 

[Gabbynaruto]

Well, I'm back. I thought it worked, but, after I rebooted the pc when it did, the partition did the same thing as before, and right now, TestDisk has no effects on it anymore. Should I assume the HDD is close to dying?

 

[FAST6191]

Should I be there I probably would be sitting around running tests on the drive itself and yeah it is a likely candidate for drive on the way out but it could still be anything in my little list above or something else entirely and able be fixed completely in software. Have you ran any higher end antivirus programs lately?

 

[Gabbynaruto]

Well, I've only been using Avast! Internet Security since I last installed the windows, so, I can't say if I have or not, because I'm not certain how good Avast is.

 

[FAST6191]

I do not think avast does too much that would make that happen- some of the programs aimed at the more paranoid people out there do things like rewrite the MBR and fiddle with partition tables which can see things like this happen.

At this point I probably have to say things like Western Digital have some pretty good hard drive analysis tools and http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm is worth a look to see what it says (SMART is not a great tool/feature but if it says something I will listen), the specific tools tend to get bundled with cds like Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD - http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ ) and Hiren's boot CD (going to have to find that one on your own). I suggest having both in your toolkit- as you now know how to use testdisk if you get a copy of clonezilla and learn to use it, figure out the basics of gparted and can run those vendor specific tools you are now sorted to fix hard drives (anything more needs you to send it off and pay a fortune).

 

[Gabbynaruto]

Well, reporting back. I can't use passmark's disk checkup self test because it says my HDD is not a SMART disk. I got a disk checkup tool by western digital, and allowed it to perform both the short and the extended tests on the HDD, both of which were passed successfully by it. So, right now, I'm downloading the two boot cds you suggested. I will probably try them tomorrow though since it's long past midnight here.