TestDisk wrote a FAT32 partition but still needs formatting

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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Author
gavinscit
Posts: 2
Joined: 18 Dec 2014, 00:49

TestDisk wrote a FAT32 partition but still needs formatting

#1 Post by gavinscit »

Hi all,

I'm new to these forums and only a novice with TestDisk.

I followed the Wiki guide for recovering a partition that Windows wants to format but am still having trouble.

Initially I was given the drive (a 500Gb USB 2.5") and Windows simply gave the usual message "The drive is not formatted. Would you like to format it now?"

Running TestDisk in Simple Search mode showed a partition so I chose it, confirmed it had the files (it did) and wrote it to the disk and rebooted. Still Windows wanted to format the drive. So I ran TestDisk again and this time let a Deeper Search run overnight. This found a partition. I confirmed it had the files (it did) so I wrote it again, rebooted, but still nothing.

Is there anything else I should be doing? When faced with a similar drive in the past the above was all that was required - but of course each case will be different I'm sure.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

gavinscit
Posts: 2
Joined: 18 Dec 2014, 00:49

Re: TestDisk wrote a FAT32 partition but still needs formatt

#2 Post by gavinscit »

For anyone else who stumbles across this - at least in my case I ended up tearing apart the external enclosure (a no-name branded unit that would never go back together again even if I wanted it to), and connected the drive directly via Sata. Windows then did an automatic check disk on the drive and everything was fine after that point.

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