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So here is the problem: I have an external disk that I use to store all the archived data, e.g. photos, movies, etc. The drive is formatted as NTFS, and checking the Disk Management tool from the Computer Management utility I can verify it is one single partition.

Running CHKDSK (and I tried with various options like /f, /r, /B, /scan, and practically all the options available) does not detect any problems. A sample output can be seen below.

1465136127 KB total disk space.
 913208424 KB in 61256 files.
     21724 KB in 6102 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
    233223 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
 551672756 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
 366284031 total allocation units on disk.
 137918189 allocation units available on disk.

However, very recently after some, what many people may call, random event, I lost a lot of my pictures. This is also the reason why I ran all the test to verify that nothing is wrong. When I attempt to start Recuva, this is what I get: 

Failed to scan the following drives:
E:: Unable to determine the file system type

And if that was not enough, at random points the drive will simply hang, that means that I may stop seeing it in My Computer or I may be able to see the icon but I not access it. Rebooting the computer does not solve it. I have to turn the power of the external drive off and then on again.

Any suggestions? Is it possible that there is a hardware error that CHKDSK cannot detect? Is there another tool that can find those kind of problems?

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  • Plausible/possible fault: Power feed too weak (for USB) or broken (external feed), alternatively a broken USB-hub (or IT's power feed) if you have one.
    – Hannu
    Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 19:23
  • Unfortunately that is not the case. I was afraid of that so I replaced the USB data cable and the hard disk is fed with an outside power source (connected to the plug).
    – George
    Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 19:32
  • Check and update driver if possible, if specific driver for the brand and no updates available, try to find a general one or vice versa.
    – Hannu
    Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 19:34
  • Unable to determine the file system type looks like a driver or partitioning problem as I re-read.
    – Hannu
    Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 19:36
  • Chkdsk checks the file system only. It detects bad sectors because files are located there and are incomplete per the checksum of the file system, but It cannot detect, hardware failures that don't cause file ststem errors
    – Ramhound
    Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 19:40

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