Lost Partition/Lost FAT/Lost FS

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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Author
sbtm77
Posts: 16
Joined: 31 Mar 2015, 06:56

Lost Partition/Lost FAT/Lost FS

#1 Post by sbtm77 »

Hi everyone,

My primary disk with OS Win 7 crashed all of a sudden and got greeted with a boot disk failure. That was 1TB Seagate HD with only 1 partition (NTFS) and had only the OS and user account files.

Put in the new HD loaded windows and started TestDisk. TD could not find any partition even after deep search, didn't find any file system and certainly says FAT is corrupt!

I really need to get to the "Program Files" and "Users" folders and that's it! Don't need nothing else!

Anyway I can get those two folders?

Thanks.

--Sadiq

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cgrenier
Site Admin
Posts: 5432
Joined: 18 Feb 2012, 15:08
Location: Le Perreux Sur Marne, France
Contact:

Re: Lost Partition/Lost FAT/Lost FS

#2 Post by cgrenier »

Run TestDisk, Advanced, Boot, RebuildBS, List and if you can see your files, copy them.
If you have problems, please post the testdisk.log file content.

sbtm77
Posts: 16
Joined: 31 Mar 2015, 06:56

Re: Lost Partition/Lost FAT/Lost FS

#3 Post by sbtm77 »

Hi,

Can't see testdisk.log in app folder. However, after carrying out what you had suggested, I get the following screen:

Code: Select all

TestDisk 7.0-WIP, Data Recovery Utility, March 2015
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org


Can't find cluster size












>[Ok]
I hope I can still get my files.

--Sadiq

sbtm77
Posts: 16
Joined: 31 Mar 2015, 06:56

Re: Lost Partition/Lost FAT/Lost FS

#4 Post by sbtm77 »

I am getting the below message, which seems severe to me:

Code: Select all

TestDisk 7.0-WIP, Data Recovery Utility, March 2015
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk e:\image.dd - 1000 GB / 931 GiB - CHS 121602 255 63
     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors
   P NTFS                     0   0  1 121601  80 63 1953525168

Boot sector
Status: Bad

Backup boot sector
Status: Bad

Sectors are not identical.

A valid NTFS Boot sector must be present in order to access
any data; even if the partition is not bootable.


>[  Quit  ]  [Rebuild BS]  [  Dump  ]
                            Return to Advanced menu
This message was recieved after trying to Rebuild BS.

Appreciate any direction.

--Sadiq

sbtm77
Posts: 16
Joined: 31 Mar 2015, 06:56

Re: Lost Partition/Lost FAT/Lost FS

#5 Post by sbtm77 »

cgrenier wrote:Run TestDisk, Advanced, Boot, RebuildBS, List and if you can see your files, copy them.
If you have problems, please post the testdisk.log file content.
Looks like my situation is really bad. Can you still help?

User avatar
cgrenier
Site Admin
Posts: 5432
Joined: 18 Feb 2012, 15:08
Location: Le Perreux Sur Marne, France
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Re: Lost Partition/Lost FAT/Lost FS

#6 Post by cgrenier »

I really need the testdisk.log file content, not a screenshot.

In the worst case, use PhotoRec. It will recover your data but without the original filenames.

sbtm77
Posts: 16
Joined: 31 Mar 2015, 06:56

Re: Lost Partition/Lost FAT/Lost FS

#7 Post by sbtm77 »

cgrenier wrote:I really need the testdisk.log file content, not a screenshot.
Here you go!
testdisk.zip
(1.36 KiB) Downloaded 267 times

User avatar
cgrenier
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Posts: 5432
Joined: 18 Feb 2012, 15:08
Location: Le Perreux Sur Marne, France
Contact:

Re: Lost Partition/Lost FAT/Lost FS

#8 Post by cgrenier »

Can you force the type of the partition to NTFS (7) and try again Boot, RebuildBS, List.
If you can see your files, choose Write and confirm.
Please post the new log file.

sbtm77
Posts: 16
Joined: 31 Mar 2015, 06:56

Re: Lost Partition/Lost FAT/Lost FS

#9 Post by sbtm77 »

cgrenier wrote:Can you force the type of the partition to NTFS (7) and try again Boot, RebuildBS, List.
If you can see your files, choose Write and confirm.
Please post the new log file.
Hi Cgrenier,

Latest logs are attached!

--Sadiq
Attachments
testdisk.zip
(1.53 KiB) Downloaded 269 times

User avatar
Fiona
Posts: 2835
Joined: 18 Feb 2012, 17:19
Location: Ludwigsburg/Stuttgart - Germany

Re: Lost Partition/Lost FAT/Lost FS

#10 Post by Fiona »

I've only got some information that you've changed your partition type Fat16<32M to NTFS using the menu Advanced / Type.
As the result, either there is no NTFS boot sector or both are invalid?
Did you already run RebuildBS?

When you were running Quick and Deeper Search, did you get any message of unrecoverable partitions?

Fiona

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