Help needed with TestDisk

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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Author
will007
Posts: 33
Joined: 19 Sep 2015, 10:10

Re: Help needed with TestDisk

#31 Post by will007 »

Hi Fiona,

I left all the partition as they are and did another "Write", but the results is still the same when I put it in the laptop, it did not work when I put the drive back into my HP Envy laptop.

I did not receive a paper copy of the manual, but I have looked in the HP support website for my laptop's digital manual version here:

http://support.hp.com/gb-en/product/HP- ... el/7255488

But I could not find any information in details about how to fix this drive issue.

I think I will give up, thank you for giving me your time, I really appreciate it, it is very kind of you to help me, you really tried so hard, and I can't thank you enough. I also thank TestDisk for allowing me to recover the files, although I couldn't fix the drive, I was able to recover precious family photos and documents which no money could buy. TestDisk succeeded in helping me to recover files where many other programs failed.

Once again, thank you Fiona for your help.

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

Re: Help needed with TestDisk

#32 Post by Fiona »

Did you already check te FN (function key) and F2-key?
Especially here:
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02876562
Hard Drive (HDD) & Solid State Drive (SSD) Diagnostics
And most important:
Advanced Diagnostics – Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)
And here:

Especially chapter 10 and 11!
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03943414
etc..

In your case I wouldn't give up.
As long as you have your data and even recovery data available, it would be worth a try.
Have a look at that Ubuntu Recovery media.

Fiona

will007
Posts: 33
Joined: 19 Sep 2015, 10:10

Re: Help needed with TestDisk

#33 Post by will007 »

Yes the F2 System Diagnosis only allows me to either "Check test" or "Check memory", which the hard disk passed both as it received "Passed" as the result.

I will have a look at those now, thank you.

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

Re: Help needed with TestDisk

#34 Post by Fiona »

Example for recovery;
To start HP Recovery Manager from the HP Recovery partition:
1.
Press
f11
while the computer boots.
– or –
Press and hold
f11
as you press the power button.
2.
Select
Troubleshoot
from the boot options menu.
3.
Select
Recovery Manager
, and follow the on-screen instructions.
And have a look at Ubuntu like;
11 Ubuntu Linux – Backing up, restoring,
and recovering

Performing a system recovery
The Deja Dup Restore Tool allows you to repair or
restore the computer to its original factory state.
You can create an image restore DVD using an optio
nal external DVD±RW optical drive. You can
also create a restore image on a USB storage device
If you have problems about ownership and RAW you can use TestDisk to copy all recovery data off of your disk and have another try.
I've checked your inaccessible partitions and except the message crc (cyclic rendundancy check) on your Recovery partition, I didn't see any faulty file system nor boot sector.
That's why I assume, it's an ownership problem and could work on your laptop.

Fiona

will007
Posts: 33
Joined: 19 Sep 2015, 10:10

Re: Help needed with TestDisk

#35 Post by will007 »

Hi Fiona,

Just to let you know, I took the laptop with the faulty drive into a shop today and paid for them to try and fix it, it's going to be costly if they can fix it, which they might not be able to.

Anyway I have another unrelated question that I hope you could answer as I know you discussed it in a previous post with someone. I'm just having one of those unlucky month, where one bad thing after another just keeps happening to me.

This time, I have iPhone 5 16GB with more family photos taken on the phone (which weren't backed up on iTune or iClouds), somehow my daughter decided to factory reset my phone, so now I've lost the photos as well.

Since then, I have not touched the phone, knowing it could do damage if I do.

I know there is an article here:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Recover_ ... _an_iPhone

So my question is, could I recover at least some of the photos using PhotoRec, if I follow the instructions from the above article? I know I need to have a jailbroken iPhone, so I am willing to try and jailbreak it using TaiG http://www.taig.com/en/ and then download the other requirments I need.

Surely, an iPhone is similar in that when you do a factory reset or delete files, its not overwriting the files, but rather making that space available?

Would PhotoRec be able to recover some files? I've tried a few software already (eg. Wondershare Dr Fone), but it couldn't find any fles, only the new default ones AFTER the factory reset.

I just don't have any luck right now...

will007
Posts: 33
Joined: 19 Sep 2015, 10:10

Re: Help needed with TestDisk

#36 Post by will007 »

Anyone know the answer to my iPhone question above?

will007
Posts: 33
Joined: 19 Sep 2015, 10:10

Re: Help needed with TestDisk

#37 Post by will007 »

Just an update.

The shop somehow managed to fix my laptop, and managed to factory reset it, which is great.

However, I've spotted a few things which is odd which may be caused by me trying to fix the issue using TestDisk.

For example, when I go into "My Computer", I now see an extra drive, which I didn't see before when I bought this laptop:
testdisk30.jpg
testdisk30.jpg (102.34 KiB) Viewed 3574 times
I think it should be invisible?

What's even odd is that when I go into Disk Management, I see duplication of partitions:
testdisk31.jpg
testdisk31.jpg (175.72 KiB) Viewed 3574 times
I now see the Recovery Drive D: twice!

I'm guessing this is because when I followed your / cgrenier's instructions to write the partition table, it must have written duplicated partitions to the partition table?

Also, I'm guessing if I do a factory reset, I will still see this extra drive? Since a factory reset may only restore the C: drive? If so, how can I get it back to how it was when I bought the laptop? Could you tell what it might have been from looking at my first screenshots from my original post? Ie. reverse engineer it?

If I have to use TestDIsk to write partition table again, I'm happy to do it. Please let me know.

Thank you!

will007
Posts: 33
Joined: 19 Sep 2015, 10:10

Re: Help needed with TestDisk

#38 Post by will007 »

I've just downloaded TestDisk onto my HP laptop (no need to use USB docking station anymore), and I can see 3 "media" when I first load it up:
testdisk32.jpg
testdisk32.jpg (99.58 KiB) Viewed 3572 times
The first one's partition table type is "EFI GPT", but the 2nd and 3rd one are "None".

Here are the next 2 screenshots when I select the first "media":
testdisk34.jpg
testdisk34.jpg (117.15 KiB) Viewed 3572 times
Attachments
testdisk33.jpg
testdisk33.jpg (117.47 KiB) Viewed 3572 times
Last edited by will007 on 16 Oct 2015, 02:03, edited 1 time in total.

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

Re: Help needed with TestDisk

#39 Post by Fiona »

You've got already a PM that another snapshot would be required of testdisk Analyse and your current partition structure.
It's necessary to watch from which partition do you boot.
Info will follow.

Fiona

will007
Posts: 33
Joined: 19 Sep 2015, 10:10

Re: Help needed with TestDisk

#40 Post by will007 »

Hi Fiona,

Thanks for your PM, you can see from my previous post, that I've already uploaded snapshot of what I see when I first run TestDisk.

In testdisk32.jpg, I see 3 media.

When I select the first media called "Disk /Dev/sda - 1000GB /931 GiB", I then see this testdisk33.jpg.

If I click "Analyse", I see this:
testdisk34a.jpg
testdisk34a.jpg (121.53 KiB) Viewed 3553 times
If I click "Quick Search", I see this:
testdisk34b.jpg
testdisk34b.jpg (117.15 KiB) Viewed 3553 times

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