cgsecurity.org

Hi all,
I have an external drive (2To, one volume, HFS+ formatted) and for unknown reason/issue, disk does not mount... No partition visible !
Using search function I can find a primary partition quite quickly, system ask me to write it to disk, but am not that keen as I would preffer keeping disk unchanged, giving me more chances in rescue, running diffrents tries on unchanged drive...
So, question... how could I image the drive (and not a volume, as I don't have any) ?
Thanks for clues

TestDisk offers Image Creation using the menu Advanced.
But it's only intended to work with and doesn't offer any restore.
In case you can try a Linux Live CD and dd?
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Damaged_Hard_Disk
There is no option to restore it.
You can also have a look here;
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html ... /duh3.html
http://www.bombich.com/index.html
But it's not related to TestDisk nor PhotoRec.

Fiona

Hi Fiona,

TestDisk seems to be able to do partitions images (once partitions tables are rebuilt, even if partition is not working), not full disk with my broken allocation table and data...
From a Mac, I could do a DD, but am a pure dummy... Feel I can only DD a partition, just as TesDisk, but not entire disk... If any command line, you're welcome...

I would like to create a pure carbon copy of my broken hard drive (in which I have no partitions) and do my repair on that image, rather than playing with physical drive, as if I do a mess, won't be happy... So this image should be the input file for TestDisk.

Would a Mac disk utilities image or CCC be ok as input for TestDisk ?

Am looking for a way to get files back WITH directories structure... so I would like to deal with partition table restore/repair, but as not yet familiar, I would like to be as safe as possible...

Thanks for clues

A good solution for you would be to clone your complete disk and to work with your clone.
So you don't change anything to your affected disk.
You can have a try with carbon copy cloner and test it!

Fiona