The "To Keep Up" Wiki

An incomplete list just getting started.

You have a hard disk plugged into a USB port and you find that it cannot be read. This happened in August 2020 and we suspect it was due to brownouts.

This is what I did.

1. Plug HDD into Linux machine.
2. Run gparted and look at the drive. See a !, right click and Information
3. See: messages saying drive is having trouble and we should run chkdsk /f in Windows
4. Remove HDD and plug into windows. Using File Explorer, determine which drive letter it is, as it will show up shortly after you plug it in. For us, it was H:
5. Run MSDOS box (Start and run cmd)
6. Execute command

   chkdsk H: /f

   (Where H: is the HDD as we determined above)

   • This will likely take some time.
   • After it finishes, it is OK to run it a second time