External Drive Recovery - WD30EZRS

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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Author
Krypt
Posts: 14
Joined: 24 Dec 2012, 02:28

External Drive Recovery - WD30EZRS

#1 Post by Krypt »

I had a Western Digital external hard drive (3TB), that somehow lost it's partition/filesystem/boot record. The drive is recognized by Disk Management, however it's not accessible by other means.

Image

I ran TestDisk and selected the correct drive on the Select Media screen. On the Partition Table type screen, I selected None - Non partitioned media.

I selected Analyze on the screen following that. It showed the drive and the only option it presented me was to do a Quick Search. I ran a quick search and below is the result of that

Image

I'm concerned that it says "The following partitions can't be recovered and shows a wide range on the start/end listings (from 235 to 56050021 and from 172 to 1418488406).

Is the data on the drive gone for good? Is there any way to salvage it and get it back?

User avatar
Fiona
Posts: 2835
Joined: 18 Feb 2012, 17:19
Location: Ludwigsburg/Stuttgart - Germany

Re: External Drive Recovery - WD30EZRS

#2 Post by Fiona »

I ran a quick search and below is the result of that
It's not a result but only a message that those partitions are not recoverable (the following partitions can't be recovered).
If you receive such message, pressing enter will get you to the results!
In your disk management console, would it be possible to right click into your little small square, with a description like Disk 1 and basic?
If you right click into that square please create a screen shot.
I'd be able to figure out, do you have an Intel/PC-MBR or GPT-disk.
Intel-MBR only supports disks up to 2.2 TB.

It's recommended to use testdisk 32bit.
Select your disk and confirm through until Analyse (current partition structure).
Please copy and paste the content of your testdisk.log into your next post.
You'll find your testdisk.log within your testdisk folder.
You can open it with your editor or wordpad.

Fiona

Krypt
Posts: 14
Joined: 24 Dec 2012, 02:28

Re: External Drive Recovery - WD30EZRS

#3 Post by Krypt »

Fiona,

Thanks for the quick reply. The laptop I have the drive hooked up to is a Windows based PC. I will get the screen shot of the disk management for you. I well also get the 32 bit version of TestDisk and run the analyze on that and let you know what happens

Krypt
Posts: 14
Joined: 24 Dec 2012, 02:28

Re: External Drive Recovery - WD30EZRS

#4 Post by Krypt »

Ok, so here is the screen shot of the Disk Management showing the type

Image

I downloaded the 32bit version and selected the Partition Table type as Intel. I'm at the Analyze screen and this is what it shows:

Image

Also, attached is the log file up until this point:
Tue Jul 22 06:53:13 2014
Command line: TestDisk

TestDisk 7.0-WIP, Data Recovery Utility, June 2014
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org
OS: Windows WorkStation 6.2.9200
Compiler: GCC 4.7, Cygwin 1007.25
Compilation date: 2014-06-21T09:12:27
ext2fs lib: 1.42.8, ntfs lib: 10:0:0, reiserfs lib: 0.3.1-rc8, ewf lib: 20120504
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(/dev/sda)=1000204886016
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(/dev/sdb)=3000592982016
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(/dev/sdc)=2000398931968
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\PhysicalDrive0)=1000204886016
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\PhysicalDrive1)=3000592982016
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\PhysicalDrive2)=2000398931968
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\C:)=399714025472
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\D:)=577569292288
filewin32_getfilesize(\\.\E:) GetFileSize err Incorrect function.

filewin32_setfilepointer(\\.\E:) SetFilePointer err Incorrect function.

Warning: can't get size for \\.\E:
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\F:)=2000396746752
Hard disk list
Disk /dev/sda - 1000 GB / 931 GiB - CHS 121601 255 63, sector size=512 - Hitachi HTS541010A9E680, S/N:J840007KGP020C, FW:JA0OA480
Disk /dev/sdb - 3000 GB / 2794 GiB - CHS 364801 255 63, sector size=512 - ASMT 2105, S/N:00000000000000000000
Disk /dev/sdc - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - CHS 243201 255 63, sector size=512 - Toshiba External USB 3.0, S/N:56101565, FW:0201

Partition table type (auto): EFI GPT
Disk /dev/sdb - 3000 GB / 2794 GiB - ASMT 2105
Partition table type: Intel

Analyse Disk /dev/sdb - 3000 GB / 2794 GiB - CHS 364801 255 63
Current partition structure:
No partition is bootable
Let me know the best option to go from here

Krypt
Posts: 14
Joined: 24 Dec 2012, 02:28

Re: External Drive Recovery - WD30EZRS

#5 Post by Krypt »

So I selected Continue and it ran a Quick Search on the drive. Below are the results of the Search

Image

I selected Continue again and I'm now at the following screen:

Image

I'm not 100% certain which option I should select from here. Any help is appreciated!

Krypt
Posts: 14
Joined: 24 Dec 2012, 02:28

Re: External Drive Recovery - WD30EZRS

#6 Post by Krypt »

Can anyone assist in how I should continue from here? Any help is appreciated!

User avatar
Fiona
Posts: 2835
Joined: 18 Feb 2012, 17:19
Location: Ludwigsburg/Stuttgart - Germany

Re: External Drive Recovery - WD30EZRS

#7 Post by Fiona »

How many partitions and what file systems have you had before?
Have you been able to list your files?
Did you run Deeper Search also?
Deeper Search looks for partitions using the backup of the boot sector too.
Your disk is an Intel-MBR disk supporting disk size up to 2.2 TB but should be GPT.
On your context menu, you can watch it with convert to GPT.
Scanning a GPT-disk takes some time because it scans each sector.
Have you had a GPT disk before?

Fiona

Krypt
Posts: 14
Joined: 24 Dec 2012, 02:28

Re: External Drive Recovery - WD30EZRS

#8 Post by Krypt »

Fiona wrote:How many partitions and what file systems have you had before?
It was a drive from an Western Digital MyBook, so whatever partition type/partitions normally that come on those.
Fiona wrote:Have you been able to list your files?
I did a diskpart but it couldn't find any partitions listed. I'm not sure what other method I should try to list the files
Fiona wrote:Did you run Deeper Search also?
Deeper Search looks for partitions using the backup of the boot sector too.
Your disk is an Intel-MBR disk supporting disk size up to 2.2 TB but should be GPT.
On your context menu, you can watch it with convert to GPT.
Scanning a GPT-disk takes some time because it scans each sector.
Have you had a GPT disk before?
I've never had a GPT disk before. How would I go about converting it to that?

I do see that currently it displays a L (for Logical) next to the partition type FAT32. Should I keep it on L or change it? I'm not sure which option/route to go from this screen

Image

Krypt
Posts: 14
Joined: 24 Dec 2012, 02:28

Re: External Drive Recovery - WD30EZRS

#9 Post by Krypt »

So I did a deeper search and it couldn't find anything but upon continuing it allowed me to get back to my current screen:

Image

On this screen, I selected T to change type and it displays a list of different partition types. I know Fiona that you had mentioned it should be GPT and I see that as an option (there are a few missing on the screenshot as I didn't realize it at first). Should I select that?

Image

Deity666
Posts: 19
Joined: 29 Jul 2014, 20:40

Re: External Drive Recovery - WD30EZRS

#10 Post by Deity666 »

Can I throw my (long-winded) voice in here for a similar problem - and point to some of the same images? Also, I really rambled, so you may want to skip down to the paragraph with an * as a starting point if you want.

I bought the same drive - an internal, installed internally - and since I'm running Windows XP Home, I'm required to use the 'free included Acronis' software. Only, I have to dl'd it, it's a crippled version and won't install on another computer unless the same brand of drive is already there - it was a Seagate - so I had to jump through hoops to get it installed. Apparently, Advanced Format drives are something MS decided we didn't need, so the sw installs a 'bridge' of some kind that allows XP to handle such a large drive (as much blame as I may throw around, I have to take responsibility for not knowing some things such as this - else I wouldn't have bought it.)

For a while, I think my drive was much like the first image, although, my first partition might have been a little bigger. I was just going to use this an 'extra space' drive to allow me to consolidate my other drives. Then a drive died and I started using it. I put most stuff on the first partition, but some on the 2nd. One morning, the first partition was gone. Testdisk and Recover? could retrieve the data so I got most of what was on the 1st onto the second and foolishly? left things the way they were until I could buy another drive to put the 2nd partitions stuff on it and let Testdisk do it's thing. Well, another WD drive I bought as a boot died ~ 4 months after installing it - bad sectors - and now the 2nd partition has vanished. Now, onto the problems:

*For over a week I have been stumbling through this trying to fix it, no doubt making things worse as I have tried so many things I've read here before signing up. My partitions have switched positions from the first picture. As of this moment, I can't access any of the data on the partition, but am doing a deeper search. In the past 48 hours, this has worked, I've monkeyed around with things, it has not, I've triedother things, it has, etc. I don't know what will eventually result. It lacks the professionalism of the pictures above, but this is currently what my Testdisk-7.0-WIP looks like:

TestDisk 7.0-WIP, Data Recovery Utility, June 2014
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/sde - 3000 GB / 2794 GiB - CHS 364801 255 63
Analyse cylinder 216737/364800: 59%6


HPFS - NTFS 0 1 1 97451 213 26 1565563697
check_FAT: can't read FAT boot sector
Invalid FAT boot sector
0 D FAT16 <32M 297154 143 25 387107 4 27 14450861
FAT16 <32M 297154 143 25 387107 4 27 1445086191

At best, I think I will get access to the ~740 Gigs of data on the same size partition - which I have as much as I can currently find space for - but it will probably still be in the first position. Computer Management currently shows the 2nd partition as being 1301 GB which still will leave me missing ~ 1 GB.

At one point, I got the option to restore a partition it found - my brain siezes doing math so who knows if it even came close to being the same partition. It didn't work though, so maybe it wasn't. At another point, I got the chance to restore or write? a partition from a choice of 3 and this is bizarre as I have gotten the same three choices for other drives over the years (below is the best I can make from my chicken scratchings yesterday:

Disk /dev/sde - 400 GB / 3723 GiB - CHS 48641 255 63 Sat Aug?

14:42:12 2009
16:01:16 2009
17:03:14 2009

Man, if it had only been the right size...

Okay, two eps of Law and Order have gone, so I'll post this now. I'll try to add a capture when it's done.

@Krypt - thanks for posting the log info and images. I had no idea how much was stored in the log.
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