Partition can't be recovered! Any advice? Thanks.
Posted: 20 Nov 2014, 13:41
Hi there everyone,
I see on the forum that you have been of great assistance to a number of people who have problems with data recovery. I'm hoping you can give me some advice on how best to use TestDisk. I'm not a whizzkid by any means so I apologize in advance if what I did seems stupid - I know it was. I will explain my problem and what I have done so far. In organising my backups, I made a terrible mistake. I have a nearly full 2 TB Seagate external drive which stores video files (which I will call Drive A) and a second 2TB drive which was a backup of the first drive (Drive B). I reorganised Drive A, updating folders, deleting older material etc. Then I wanted to clone this to Drive B as the backup. This is when my thought process failed me. I began by formatting Drive B using disk utility (iMac (2.8 Ghz Core i7) running Mac OS X 10.6.8).
When this completed, I accidentally began the process of formatting Drive A! Utterly stupid I know. I'll never know why I did this. It is like my brain new this was a crazy thing to do and subconsciously made me do it. I immediately panicked and pulled the cable from Drive A. It had only begun the formatting process by perhaps two or three seconds. After my panic subsided, in a cold sweat I tried to mount Drive A and of course it would not mount.
I have been at my wits end for the past week in trying to find a solution. These are the steps I have taken. I used Data Rescue 3 to do a deep scan on Drive A and then copy the "Found Files" to a new 2TB drive I bought (Drive C). It all looked really promising. All the data seemed to be recovered. However, when I mounted Drive C and tried to open any of the files, it says "This is not a movie file". Something has been corrupted. The files are the correct size and are in the correct folders, but none will open. I read online that TestDisk could be a solution, but I am not a computer expert (and from what I did with hard drive - perhaps a computer idiot). I have run a TestDisk scan on Drive C and these seem to be the results/problems:
Disk /dev/rdisk1 - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - 488378645 sectors (RO)
Partition Start End Size in sectors
>D FAT32 LBA 6 76805 76800 [EFI]
D HPFS - NTFS 2048 488376319 488374272 [Seagate Expansion Drive]
D HFS 76806 488345871 488269066
Disk /dev/rdisk1 - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - 488378645 sectors (RO)
The harddisk (2000 GB / 1863 GiB) seems too small! (< 4000 GB / 3726 GiB)
Check the harddisk size: HD jumpers settings, BIOS detection...
Disk /dev/rdisk1 - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - 488378645 sectors (RO)
Partition Start End Size in sectors
No partition found or selected for recovery
The following partition can't be recovered:
Partition Start End Size in sectors
> HPFS - NTFS 488376319 976750590 488374272
Structure: Ok.
Disk /dev/rdisk1 - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - 488378645 sectors (RO)
check_FAT: Unusual media descriptor (0xf0!=0xf8)
Warning: number of heads/cylinder mismatches 16 (FAT) != 1 (HD)
Warning: number of sectors per track mismatches 32 (FAT) != 1 (HD)
FAT32 LBA 6 76805 76800 [EFI]
check_FAT: Unusual media descriptor (0xf0!=0xf8)
Warning: number of heads/cylinder mismatches 16 (FAT) != 1 (HD)
Warning: number of sectors per track mismatches 32 (FAT) != 1 (HD)
FAT32 LBA 12 76811 76800 [EFI]
Warning: number of heads/cylinder mismatches 255 (NTFS) != 1 (HD)
Warning: number of sectors per track mismatches 63 (NTFS) != 1 (HD)
Warning: number of heads/cylinder mismatches 255 (NTFS) != 1 (HD)
Warning: number of sectors per track mismatches 63 (NTFS) != 1 (HD)
HPFS - NTFS 2048 488376319 488374272 [Seagate Expansion Drive]
I can submit the full log if you think it would help more. Could anyone be of assistance? Should I run some TestDisk scans on the original drive (Drive A)? I'm afraid to make any changes to drive A as I understand that writing new data to it could destroy my files for good. I'm fully aware that you offer advice on TestDisk and that you are not a data recovery service so I appreciate any advice you can give and thank you in advance for your time.
Kindest regards,
Cathal
I see on the forum that you have been of great assistance to a number of people who have problems with data recovery. I'm hoping you can give me some advice on how best to use TestDisk. I'm not a whizzkid by any means so I apologize in advance if what I did seems stupid - I know it was. I will explain my problem and what I have done so far. In organising my backups, I made a terrible mistake. I have a nearly full 2 TB Seagate external drive which stores video files (which I will call Drive A) and a second 2TB drive which was a backup of the first drive (Drive B). I reorganised Drive A, updating folders, deleting older material etc. Then I wanted to clone this to Drive B as the backup. This is when my thought process failed me. I began by formatting Drive B using disk utility (iMac (2.8 Ghz Core i7) running Mac OS X 10.6.8).
When this completed, I accidentally began the process of formatting Drive A! Utterly stupid I know. I'll never know why I did this. It is like my brain new this was a crazy thing to do and subconsciously made me do it. I immediately panicked and pulled the cable from Drive A. It had only begun the formatting process by perhaps two or three seconds. After my panic subsided, in a cold sweat I tried to mount Drive A and of course it would not mount.
I have been at my wits end for the past week in trying to find a solution. These are the steps I have taken. I used Data Rescue 3 to do a deep scan on Drive A and then copy the "Found Files" to a new 2TB drive I bought (Drive C). It all looked really promising. All the data seemed to be recovered. However, when I mounted Drive C and tried to open any of the files, it says "This is not a movie file". Something has been corrupted. The files are the correct size and are in the correct folders, but none will open. I read online that TestDisk could be a solution, but I am not a computer expert (and from what I did with hard drive - perhaps a computer idiot). I have run a TestDisk scan on Drive C and these seem to be the results/problems:
Disk /dev/rdisk1 - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - 488378645 sectors (RO)
Partition Start End Size in sectors
>D FAT32 LBA 6 76805 76800 [EFI]
D HPFS - NTFS 2048 488376319 488374272 [Seagate Expansion Drive]
D HFS 76806 488345871 488269066
Disk /dev/rdisk1 - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - 488378645 sectors (RO)
The harddisk (2000 GB / 1863 GiB) seems too small! (< 4000 GB / 3726 GiB)
Check the harddisk size: HD jumpers settings, BIOS detection...
Disk /dev/rdisk1 - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - 488378645 sectors (RO)
Partition Start End Size in sectors
No partition found or selected for recovery
The following partition can't be recovered:
Partition Start End Size in sectors
> HPFS - NTFS 488376319 976750590 488374272
Structure: Ok.
Disk /dev/rdisk1 - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - 488378645 sectors (RO)
check_FAT: Unusual media descriptor (0xf0!=0xf8)
Warning: number of heads/cylinder mismatches 16 (FAT) != 1 (HD)
Warning: number of sectors per track mismatches 32 (FAT) != 1 (HD)
FAT32 LBA 6 76805 76800 [EFI]
check_FAT: Unusual media descriptor (0xf0!=0xf8)
Warning: number of heads/cylinder mismatches 16 (FAT) != 1 (HD)
Warning: number of sectors per track mismatches 32 (FAT) != 1 (HD)
FAT32 LBA 12 76811 76800 [EFI]
Warning: number of heads/cylinder mismatches 255 (NTFS) != 1 (HD)
Warning: number of sectors per track mismatches 63 (NTFS) != 1 (HD)
Warning: number of heads/cylinder mismatches 255 (NTFS) != 1 (HD)
Warning: number of sectors per track mismatches 63 (NTFS) != 1 (HD)
HPFS - NTFS 2048 488376319 488374272 [Seagate Expansion Drive]
I can submit the full log if you think it would help more. Could anyone be of assistance? Should I run some TestDisk scans on the original drive (Drive A)? I'm afraid to make any changes to drive A as I understand that writing new data to it could destroy my files for good. I'm fully aware that you offer advice on TestDisk and that you are not a data recovery service so I appreciate any advice you can give and thank you in advance for your time.
Kindest regards,
Cathal