3TB ext Mac seagate drive went bad

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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hockeyguy
Posts: 5
Joined: 21 Dec 2014, 22:42

3TB ext Mac seagate drive went bad

#1 Post by hockeyguy »

Hello. Thanks for the help in advance.
Drive having problems...is Seagate 3TB external backup drive
Used on older iMacs 2007 intel, then MacBook Late 2011 i7-2.8 model, and now iMac 2008 intel
Purchased as a PC drive - but never used on PC
Immediately formatted with macs - disc utility with 1 partition, GUID, Mac OS extended

Started to notice a problem because the light on the original casing (power supply) started to get dimmer but 4 weeks ago it was functional, then dim light and occasionally disconnecting from iMac after a short time.
Then 3 weeks ago became no longer able to recognizable to any computer.

So I opened the external drive box and connected it to a new / good/ steady power source, and a SATA controller (SABRENT product)
Imac still can't read it(or find it probably )....but TESTDISK can find it. I will attach the log file that is ridiculously long.
20 gb in length...sorry....uploading seems to be failing...so I'll post the topic, then attempt again...

Kindly post your suggestions on how to get this log file to you. Ridiculous length.

Also, Ideas on what software will do a "raw" drive backup? As in, its only 3 tb in length, but I used an app by the name of "EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard"......it found 4-5 TB of files!!...I transferred those found files to a 5 tb hard drive....absolutely NOT ONE of the files worked.....for reasons Most people will understand why... But an actual scan of the hard drive should max out at the physical limit of the hard drive, correct??

Test disk finds one large partition - which is correct
But then scanned (on the old iMac) for 3 days straight - finding a million plus unrecoverable partitions...
wow...

And the answer after wards is that occasionally the 3tb hard drive will show up as having 1 partition for like 650gb...the rest of the drive is blank, but the test disk at first finds a 3tb partition, and deep analysis finds 10000 or millions of partitions (hence the 20 gb log file)..

now what? I ran test disk, made sure I was admin, analyze, simple, then deeper scan, then ?? now what?
Will try to upload the log if your forum allows such a large attachment.

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cgrenier
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Posts: 5432
Joined: 18 Feb 2012, 15:08
Location: Le Perreux Sur Marne, France
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Re: 3TB ext Mac seagate drive went bad

#2 Post by cgrenier »

Please clone the disk to a new empty one using gnu ddrescue:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Damaged_Hard_Disk
Once it's done, remove the original disk and use testdisk on the clone.

hockeyguy
Posts: 5
Joined: 21 Dec 2014, 22:42

Re: 3TB ext Mac seagate drive went bad

#3 Post by hockeyguy »

Thank you.
Cloning in progress.

I did run the test disk on the original drive. Didn't make any changes though.
The test disk took 3 days on the drive and the log file is 20gb long.
Can I post that long of a file on the forum? Do you want to see it? What's the next step.

Yes, will run test disk on new drive once cloning complete.
8-)
R

hockeyguy
Posts: 5
Joined: 21 Dec 2014, 22:42

Re: 3TB ext Mac seagate drive went bad

#4 Post by hockeyguy »

Thank you

hockeyguy
Posts: 5
Joined: 21 Dec 2014, 22:42

Re: 3TB ext Mac seagate drive went bad

#5 Post by hockeyguy »

I am now feeling useless - minimal coding skills - but I can usually figure things out...
Have terminal up
used diskutil to figure out my drives names...
old corrupt 3tb drive i disk3 (partition disk3s1
new 3tb drive (and newly formatted GUID / etc ... is disk2 (disk2s2 is the 3tb partition, disk2s1 is 314.6mb EFI)

BUT....
# download ddrescue
wget http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releas ... .8.tar.bz2
# extract the source code
tar xjf ddrescue-1.8.tar.bz2
# compile ddrescue
cd ddrescue-1.8
./configure && make
# first, grab most of the error-free areas in a hurry:
./ddrescue -n /dev/disk3 /dev/disk2.log
# then try to recover as much of the dicy areas as possible:
./ddrescue -r 1 /dev/disk3 /dev/disk2.log

That doesn't "run" in terminal.... I get this.... sorry - newbie here...

bash-3.2# # download ddrescue
bash-3.2# wget http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releas ... .8.tar.bz2
bash: wget: command not found
bash-3.2# # extract the source code
bash-3.2# tar xjf ddrescue-1.8.tar.bz2
tar: Error opening archive: Failed to open 'ddrescue-1.8.tar.bz2'
bash-3.2# # compile ddrescue
bash-3.2# cd ddrescue-1.8
bash: cd: ddrescue-1.8: No such file or directory
bash-3.2# ./configure && make
bash: ./configure: No such file or directory
bash-3.2# # first, grab most of the error-free areas in a hurry:
bash-3.2# ./ddrescue -n /dev/disk3 /dev/disk2.log
bash: ./ddrescue: No such file or directory
bash-3.2# # then try to recover as much of the dicy areas as possible:
bash-3.2# ./ddrescue -r 1 /dev/disk3 /dev/disk2.log

hockeyguy
Posts: 5
Joined: 21 Dec 2014, 22:42

Re: 3TB ext Mac seagate drive went bad

#6 Post by hockeyguy »

The test disk log performed for 3 days on original 3TB drive is 20gb in length.
How do I upload that to this forum for diagnosis???


Christmas interruption in the cloning and test disk on clone. Will post asap. Just wondering if diagnosis on original test disk can help.

tia

R

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