Partitions not accesible in Windows 7

Using TestDisk to repair the filesystem
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Author
jedikalimero
Posts: 1
Joined: 08 Jun 2012, 11:55

Partitions not accesible in Windows 7

#1 Post by jedikalimero »

I have an external USB connected iomega 2TB SATA drive. It was partitioned in two partitions of 1TB each one in NTFS format. The volumes had their letters set to R: and S: using the Disk Administrator and the volume names were Prometeo and Odisea (All my volumes have names of SciFi spaceships :-)

Suddendly, one day after turning on the drive, I got the message "Format disk in drive R: to use it" (I'm translating from my Spanish Windows 7 installation) followed by same message for drive S: and I clicked in Cancel, of course.

In the Explorer, the volumes appear now as "Local Disk (S:)" and "Local Disk (R:)" instead of "Prometeo (S:)" and "Odisea (R:)". The graphical bar that shows the used space is absent and properties shows used space, available space and capacity as zero. Error Check in tools tab of Properties says error check can't be performed because the system can't access the disk.

Disk Manager lists both volumes as RAW format, Basic type and correct state (Primary partition) (R:, the first partition appears also as Active). In the graphical panel both partitions appear having the correct size of 931.33 GB and 931.68 GB

Handy Recovery 4.0 from SoftLogica list them as "Local Drive (R:) : REMOVABLE size: 0 bytes" (same for S:) but performs the analysis correctly showing all the folders and files structure as it goes without need of a deep analysis.

EaseUs Partition Recovery 5.0.1 sees the partitions even with their volume names and used/free space but doesn't do anything, apparently because the program thinks the partitions are correct and doesn't find any lost partition.

Fortunately I backed up all the contents thanks to Handy Recovery. The only problem was finding the space for the backup but I finally purchased another 2TB drive to do it.

Finally, TestDisk also finds both partitions immediately with correct sizes and volume labels but when I select Quick Search and then P to list the files, instead of the folder structure I get this:

Directory /

>dr-xr-xr-x 0 0 0 28-Jan-2012 19:43 .
-r--r--r-- 0 0 8 28-Jan-2012 19:43 .:^EC0B21842-99B8-46E2-A991-
dr-xr-xr-x 0 0 0 28-Jan-2012 19:43 ..
-r--r--r-- 0 0 8 28-Jan-2012 19:43 ..:^EC0B21842-99B8-46E2-A991

And the same in the other volume.

I'm performing a deeper search now but it will take several hours.

So, all data is safely backed up and presumably I could now just repartition and reformat the drive but I would like to know if it is possible to repair the filesystem of the partitions and how should I proceed.

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