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Hello.

I came across testdisk and thought it might help me out. I have an external hard-drive that I am trying to repair for someone else. It is a Western Digital usb3 My Book. It might have started to fail or it was hit by maleware. It is about 2 years old and has been left on a lot. It isn't shut off and packed away when not in use. The partition is RAW.

I installed testdisk on C drive. The external hard-drive is 2 TB. The C drive is smaller. I Created a new log file. I found the external hard-drive. I choose two different ways with the partition type.

1. I first choose Intel/PC partition. There was only one partition on it. It worked somewhat quickly, but I did not try to recover the partition table onto the external hard-drive. I shut-down the computer and the external hard-drive needed to be deep scanned again.
2. I then thought I should select Unknown partition the second time I scanned the hard-drive. This took a long time. I first had a Blue Screen Of Death and had to start over. Then I choose Unknown partition again and did a deep scan. After it ran on my computer for over twelve hours, it was only about 17% done and the log file became huge. Windows told me data will be over-written and I have to delete some files. So I stopped the testdisk program and deleted the 250 GB log file.
3. Before I continue I am wondering about the program.

- Where should I install testdisk and place the log file? Can I install testdisk on C drive and put the log file onto another external hard-drive?
- Will creating a log file make a successful recovery better? Is there more information for the external hard-drive? Is the chance of data retrieval with a program such as PhotoRec or Piriforms Recuva better?
- When the partition table is found should I try and place the partition table onto another hard-drive? I have one that is 2 TB also. It seems it should be re-applied onto the same external hard-drive which is 2 TB?
- The external hard-drive seems empty and even testdisk reported that. But there should be about 250 or more GB on it. Is this normal? This is why I think I need PhotoRec or Recuva.
- The external hard-drive is still RAW. But I tried to use PhotoRec and it actually recognized it. After the PhotoRec scan, nothing was found. For this program or another to work it would require a recognized partition?

Thank you.

Run TestDisk, Advanced, Boot, RebuildBS, List. If you see your files, choose Write, confirm, Quit and restart your computer.
If you have problems, please copy/paste the testdisk.log file content in your message.

There is no partition recognized, it is RAW. Device Manager recognized the external hard-drive, not Disk Management. Windows says I have to re-format it, but I have not done that yet.

The log files were too big, most of the cylinders or bits/bytes were damaged. This message kept being stated in testdisk during the scans.

Since this external hard-drive was NTFS file system and used with Windows 7 should I just select the partition table type as Intel/PC partition?

When or why would I select Unknown? Can Unknown find more information and do a deeper scan?

Why does Unknown partition take up to 4 days for a 2 TB external hard-drive? As I said above The log files were too big, most of the cylinders or bits/bytes were damaged. That is probably why..?

Since the log files are becoming 250GB+, can I install testdisk onto another empty external hard-drive and have the log file there? Can I direct the log file onto a larger empty external hard-drive? I don't want to large log file to over-write the OS c-drive partition.

Can I apply a found partition table onto another different external hard-drive that is the same size as the original?

Thank you.

Can you post a screenshot for each screen ? TestDisk, Disk selection, partition table type selection, Advanced, Boot

Hello cgrenier.

I attached 5 screenshots.

Testdisk 1-4 JPG's are when I select Intel/PC partition.
Testdisk 5 JPG is when I select None non partitioned media.

At the second screen (Disk selection) to detect all the blank media and HDD's, I blocked out everything else except Disk /dev/sdj (this is the external hard-drive).

Another question I have is: At the second screen (Disk selection) I also noticed some drive letters are not recognized. I have 4 internal drives. Drive E does not show up in the drive letter area at the bottom. But it's size shows up at the Disk /dev/sdb or c area. Is this normal? It is SATA 3, the other HDD's are SATA 2.

I am using Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit.

Screen Shot 4 and 5.

Hello.

I ran the Unknown search and it took about 4 days. I did not do a deeper scan since I have to turn my computer off. Is it recommended that I redo the long scan and then a deeper scan?

I attached some screen shots. They are in order look at them from the first one down to the last.

Is it recommended that I try to image this unknown/corrupted partition onto another external hard-drive? I have one that is the same 2 TB size and empty.

I re-tried to use testdisk. I selected Intel/PC partition. The scan was much faster. I kept the log file. It is 1.59 GB. I then did a deeper search. The log file became 3.76 GB.

Nothing shows up.

Any advice?

More screen shots.

The last three screen shots.

Edited: For bold highlighting.

I thought I would add this information and screen shot.

When looking at the Testdisk menu I plugged in soem external hard-drives and media. I noticed that the corrupted Western Digital hard-drive is a smaller size than other external hard-drives. Some are Western Digital.

Look at Disk /dev sdj - 2000 GB / 1862 GiB - This is corrupted and not showing partitions. Western Digital My Book 2 TB.
Look at Disk /dev/sdk - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB -This is a Western Digital 3.5" 2 TB HDD in an enclosure.

Look above at Disk /dev sdb - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - This is an internal Western Digital 3.5" 2 TB HDD. Drive D.

Please ignore these drives: There are some flash sticks and other external HDD's I plugged in to see what is happening with them. Drive C is partitioned into drive C and drive G.

The log files are large in GB's. I am having trouble opening them, so there isn't mush information I can post at this time. How can I post them up?

Thank you.