[Click image for full-sized view.]
After Audible Clues When 8TB Backup Drive Goes South, Time for Repairs
Luckily, I’ve got a commercial license for MiniTool Partition Wizard (MTPW). It includes both Data Recovery and Partition Recovery capabilities. So first, I let MTPW define the drive layout as GPT (as it must for a drive bigger than 2TB). Next, I ran the program’s Partition Recovery capability. About 30 seconds later, the drive’s contents were visible in the MTPW Partition Explorer. But I still had to assign a drive letter before repairs were complete. Immediately thereafter, I ran a manual image backup using Macrium Reflect to make up for the backup I’d missed along with the 8TB drive. As you can see from the most recent timestamp for the top file in the lead-in graphic, today’s belated backup is stored with all its predecessors.
A Bit of Insurance Against Recurrence
I also finally switched in my brand-new Wavlink USB 3.0 docking station (Model: ML-ST3334U) for the old Intatek unit I’d been using. Turns out the Inatek couldn’t handle even a 4 TB and and 8TB drive. Given that I’ve had problems with this dock before, I’d been waiting for the “next fault” to force the swap. I think that’s what happened this morning. I also think the Inatek can’t really handle ONE 8TB drive without power issues. The Wavlink, OTOH, is rated to handle 2 8TB drives. That’s why I bought it, and why I hope this means I won’t see my big backup drive go bye-bye again soon.
But weirder things have happened on my production PC, and may happen again. As we all know, that’s just the way things sometimes go (or go south) in Windows World. Count on me to keep you posted as and when such weirdness happens.



