Running TestDisk on External HDD

Using TestDisk to repair the filesystem
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KateH
Posts: 5
Joined: 04 Jan 2014, 09:31

Running TestDisk on External HDD

#1 Post by KateH »

Hi there,

I've been searching all over this forum and all over the internet and can't find the answer I'm looking for, maybe I've missed it somewhere. Anyway....

I recently got a brand new Seagate 3.0 2Tb external drive. I was doing a backup and I think my laptop switched off while this was going on, stupidly, I wasn't around at the time. Anyway, my laptop (or any other computer) can pick up the drive itself, but I can't do anything with it. It asks me to format the drive but it won't, I can't find it on Disk Management but the drive does show up in My Computer.

I'm not really too worried about the data on the drive, as I have only just done a backup and have a spare, but seeing as this is a new device, I really would like to get it working.

I've run TestDisk a few times (it takes forever) and get different results. The first time nothing at all seemed to happen, although I left it overnight. The next time it basically told me it couldn't read RAW files. The next time it said Invalid NTFS or ExFAT boot. And now it just says Read Error. I don't seem to be able to do anything else after that. I've read other peoples' posts about doing Deep Searches and stuff, but I think I may have fiddled enough, so I'm turning to the experts!

Hope someone has some help for me.

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cgrenier
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Re: Running TestDisk on External HDD

#2 Post by cgrenier »

Can you post the testdisk.log file ?

KateH
Posts: 5
Joined: 04 Jan 2014, 09:31

Re: Running TestDisk on External HDD

#3 Post by KateH »

Tue Dec 31 11:58:46 2013
Command line: TestDisk

TestDisk 6.14, Data Recovery Utility, July 2013
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org
OS: Windows 7 (7601) SP1
Compiler: GCC 4.7, Cygwin 1007.17
Compilation date: 2013-07-30T14:08:52
ext2fs lib: 1.42.2, ntfs lib: 10:0:0, reiserfs lib: 0.3.1-rc8, ewf lib: 20120504
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(/dev/sda)=160041885696
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(/dev/sdb)=2000398933504
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\PhysicalDrive0)=160041885696
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\PhysicalDrive1)=2000398933504
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\C:)=159934054400
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\D:)=2000388063744
Hard disk list
Disk /dev/sda - 160 GB / 149 GiB - CHS 19457 255 63, sector size=512 - ST9160314AS, S/N:2020202020202020202020205635374352364b4b, FW:0003DEM1
Disk /dev/sdb - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - CHS 243201 255 63, sector size=512 - Seagate Backup 3.0, S/N:00000000000000000000, FW:0201

Partition table type default to Intel
Disk /dev/sdb - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - Seagate Backup 3.0
Partition table type: Intel

TestDisk exited normally.


This is the only log I could find, I'm not sure where the others would have been saved. I did a search for them but nothing came up. This was the first one I ran on 31/12/2013.

I did a scan with fidentity as well, with the following results:



Sat Jan 4 08:23:32 2014
Command line: fidentify

cygwin warning:
MS-DOS style path detected: C:\Users\Administrator\photorec.sig
Preferred POSIX equivalent is: /cygdrive/c/Users/Administrator/photorec.sig
CYGWIN environment variable option "nodosfilewarning" turns off this warning.
Consult the user's guide for more details about POSIX paths:
http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using.h ... -pathnames
fidentify 6.14, Data Recovery Utility, July 2013
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org
612 first-level signatures enabled

Not sure if that helps.

If I were to run TestDisk again, where would the new log be saved? I have selected Create log every time I've run a test.

Thanks.

KateH
Posts: 5
Joined: 04 Jan 2014, 09:31

Re: Running TestDisk on External HDD

#4 Post by KateH »

Any suggestions?

KateH
Posts: 5
Joined: 04 Jan 2014, 09:31

Re: Running TestDisk on External HDD

#5 Post by KateH »

Does anyone have any ideas?? Please?!

sportbillyboy
Posts: 5
Joined: 26 Jan 2014, 14:35

Re: Running TestDisk on External HDD

#6 Post by sportbillyboy »

I don't know fidentify.

For testdisk, no error is logged at this step.
Can you list (with testdisk) the files in both partitions?

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