Recovering a raw HDD - a few questions
Posted: 26 Nov 2018, 23:09
Long story short:
- a 2 Tb drive, used as a single drive D, turned RAW. Visible in My Computer without volume name and size (demands reformatting when clicked), visible in Disk Management, not processed by chkdsk command.
- Testdisk insistently defaults to "None" partition whereas picking "Intel" doesn't show any partitions, search yields nothing. Granted, the only reason it raises my eyebrow is the footnote that single partition drives shouldn't have "none" type normally.
- picking None ironically shows an "NTFS" partition that can list the files and folders fine. Booting reports boot sector as "OK" and backup BS as "bad"; trying to organize BS, however, "can't overwrite backup boot sector".
So here's what I'm still wondering about after browsing this forum. I assume the next logical step is to try rebuilding BS, but since I'm often at work and can't really leave the PC on for too long in my absence:
- is it possible to roughly estimate how long "Rebuild BS" would take on an almost packed (some 100-150 Gb free IIRC) 2 Tb drive? For reference, a quick search I did on Intel type took a bit over two hours, but I doubt I can just assume the same about what sounds like a more thorough operation.
- if I had to quit for time constraints before Testdisk is finished, would it be safe to interrupt the operation and restart it some other time?
- if rebuilding BS doesn't solve the problem, will it affect the file recovery odds in worst case scenario? Granted, I would like to avoid the latter if possible - as mentioned above, it's almost 2 Tb of data and, short of buying an external 2 Tb drive, I simply don't have room to copy the files or clone the disk to.
Thanks in advance for possible tips and comments. Sorry to bother you folks without providing logs and screenshots, but if they're required for better judgement, it'll have to wait at least until Thursday (the one day a week when I normally have most free time to spend at home dealing with this whole predicament).
- a 2 Tb drive, used as a single drive D, turned RAW. Visible in My Computer without volume name and size (demands reformatting when clicked), visible in Disk Management, not processed by chkdsk command.
- Testdisk insistently defaults to "None" partition whereas picking "Intel" doesn't show any partitions, search yields nothing. Granted, the only reason it raises my eyebrow is the footnote that single partition drives shouldn't have "none" type normally.
- picking None ironically shows an "NTFS" partition that can list the files and folders fine. Booting reports boot sector as "OK" and backup BS as "bad"; trying to organize BS, however, "can't overwrite backup boot sector".
So here's what I'm still wondering about after browsing this forum. I assume the next logical step is to try rebuilding BS, but since I'm often at work and can't really leave the PC on for too long in my absence:
- is it possible to roughly estimate how long "Rebuild BS" would take on an almost packed (some 100-150 Gb free IIRC) 2 Tb drive? For reference, a quick search I did on Intel type took a bit over two hours, but I doubt I can just assume the same about what sounds like a more thorough operation.
- if I had to quit for time constraints before Testdisk is finished, would it be safe to interrupt the operation and restart it some other time?
- if rebuilding BS doesn't solve the problem, will it affect the file recovery odds in worst case scenario? Granted, I would like to avoid the latter if possible - as mentioned above, it's almost 2 Tb of data and, short of buying an external 2 Tb drive, I simply don't have room to copy the files or clone the disk to.
Thanks in advance for possible tips and comments. Sorry to bother you folks without providing logs and screenshots, but if they're required for better judgement, it'll have to wait at least until Thursday (the one day a week when I normally have most free time to spend at home dealing with this whole predicament).