Transferring, Formatting

[jmarket]

I have a 2tb flash that I’m trying to copy files from a 4tb ext drive. It got unplugged during a copy and now has some problems. So, I want to back up the info and format that drive and put it back. Something went wrong. First of all, while transferring, it was only copying at about 5MB/s. All in all, it’s about 1.5tb. Something went wrong again, and it stopped. I go to format the 2tb drive and start over and I’m roughly 12 hours into it and the progress bar is about 10-15% and in the last 3 I don’t think its moved. I can’t seem to win here. I have about 2tb of video files I’ve been compiling now for more than 10 years now. I don’t have the time, bandwidth, or data to start this over. What would you all do? Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.

[Malnutrition]

Sounds like the flash drive may be on its way out, do you have a smaller one you could test, perhaps just move one of your video files from point a to b with it.

[Bastet]

Are there any files on the thumb drive which aren’t backed up?
If not then try diskpart to clean the drive:
Right click Start & choose Powershell with admin & enter these CDs-
Diskpart
list disk
select disk X (where X is the number of the drive you wish to clean - be careful here)
Clean
Exit
Exit

Then open disk management where you can initialise &/or create a partition.

[jmarket]

Sounds like the flash drive may be on its way out, do you have a smaller one you could test, perhaps just move one of your video files from point a to b with it.

I just bought the 2tb flash about 3 weeks ago. I just now hit cx on the format. 2 days and it might’ve been about 30%. I’m going to try again with smaller chunks instead of the whole thing at once.

[jmarket]

Are there any files on the thumb drive which aren’t backed up?
If not then try diskpart to clean the drive:
Right click Start & choose Powershell with admin & enter these CDs-
Diskpart
list disk
select disk X (where X is the number of the drive you wish to clean - be careful here)
Clean
Exit
Exit

Then open disk management where you can initialise &/or create a partition.

I have lost some files already but right now the 2tb flash should be clean. I took about 50gb off my desktop with that and when things got messed up I cut and paste them all to the 4tb. That seemed like it went fine at first but upon closer inspection, most folders are empty but the main folder they are in takes up about 50gb. I’ve got all kinds of problems. I really don’t want to loose 10+ years of saving mainly movies but tons of other things as well. Why do I want to create a partition and what is that about “cd?” I’m going to do a quick format and follow those steps and see if I can figure out what you’re talking about. Thx

[Bastet]

Auto correct - the word should be CMDs.
I would try the diskpart commands first as formatting may not be enough.
Once the clean cmd is run there’ll be no files remaining so you’d need to create a basic partition.
Format the drive as ExFAT or NTFS to ensure large files can be transferred.
Ensure the files aren’t set to Hidden on the thumb drive.

[jmarket]

Ok. I hate auto correct. that threw me. I sounds like the partition wouldn’t be a portion but the whole thing. Thank you, I’m going to run it now

[jmarket]

Now I have a new problem. It’s labeled unallocated and won’t let me initialize or format in any way with any software. Not in disk man, simple right click-format, or with seagate tools. Microsoft help stated that some drives won’t need initialized but just assigned a letter. It has that. I think I’m screwed. I guess I’m going to take the 4tb drive to a shop and see if they can fix my initial problem. It’ll be too much money if it’s even poss but I can’t stand to loose all the video and back up on it. Thank you for your advice.

[Bastet]

Under disk management you would right click on the unallocated partition & choose create basic partition.

[jmarket]

At first when I did this, it wouldn’t let me assign a letter or volume. I ejected and tried again, and it will let me do that. Still, there’s no partition option of any kind. Like I said, Microsoft site says not all drives will give you this option. I’m pretty sure I just took the long way of right click and quick format. I might try reg format, but I have a feeling it’s going to crawl in this program for days too. By right click and not quick format, it went 2 days at barely 30%. The drive is all but new. I don’t know how it could’ve gotten bad sectors and why windows couldn’t fix them. I don’t know what it means with all those horizontal lines across the disk in question either. (That was just because I had that drive selected) Scratch that last part.

[Bastet]

When you choose format (shown in the 3rd photo) does it format the drive?
Creating a new simple volume create the partition.

[jmarket]

I don’t think so. I tried that and as of now it says formatting 5% now. I can’t imagine it should take this long no matter the size.

[Bastet]

It should do a quick format but if a full format is required then it will take time. A 2TB drive shouldn’t take 12 hours unless it is faulty or a full format was specified.

[Bruce]

@DVerdier - any news?

[Bruce]

abandoned.