cgsecurity.org

My harddisk drive failed back in October. I managed to get an image.dd mirror of it, but am unable to access the data in the mirror; or the harddisk for that matter. I have replaced the harddisk drive, but if possible I'd still like to retrieve (some) of the data from the mirror.

When the drive failed, I first of all tried the Windows Vista recovery disk. That did not help. I then thought that formatting the disk would help. It didn't. That was the point where I used testdisk to copy the mirror. When I process the mirror through either Testdisk or Photorec, I merely get a heap of unusable file fragments. The problem seems to be a fault in the bootsector (as well as its backup) which Testdisk is unable to repair.

Did you try to mount your image using testdisk or photorec this way?
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Media_Image
Partition table type would be "None"!
You can use the Menu Advanced to have a try to repair your boot sector.
If your image appears under Advanced as "Unknown" you can use the menu Type to add your correct filsystem.
After adding your file system you can use the menu boot and Rebuild BS.
If it's successful, you'll see the menu list, where you can have a try to list your data.
If your file system is damaged and doesn't list any files, you can use photorec to have a try to recover your data.
Some info;
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec_Step_By_Step

Fiona