disk almost inaccessible

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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hornetster
Posts: 3
Joined: 05 Jan 2023, 08:28

disk almost inaccessible

#1 Post by hornetster »

Had a boot disk with Win10 about 500gb (3 partitions - 1st boot partition about 50mb - 2nd Main Win Partition about 100gb, the one I am mainly interested in - 3rd small ntfs partition??). Rest was free. Created extended, added ext2 + small swap.
Installed another disk as boot, and installed Win10 + Ubuntu. Working fine.
Decided to get rid of boot off 1st disk - deleted 1st part and 3rd part. Increasing size of extended with gparted (why didn't I just delete/recreate??) During the size increase, errored, and basically have intermittent access since. Sometimes when booting it finds the disk (lots of errors - sda1/sda2/sda3/sda5), other times doesn't find it at all.
Is there any chance of recovery?
Have tried testdisk - can't find any partitions, even with a deep search?
Thanks, John.

recuperation
Posts: 2720
Joined: 04 Jan 2019, 09:48
Location: Hannover, Deutschland (Germany, Allemagne)

Re: disk almost inaccessible

#2 Post by recuperation »

hornetster wrote: 05 Jan 2023, 08:40 Had a boot disk with Win10 about 500gb (3 partitions - 1st boot partition about 50mb - 2nd Main Win Partition about 100gb, the one I am mainly interested in - 3rd small ntfs partition??). Rest was free. Created extended, added ext2 + small swap.
What was the partition table type? MBR or GPT?

Installed another disk as boot, and installed Win10 + Ubuntu.
Installed where exactly?
Working fine.
Decided to get rid of boot off 1st disk - deleted 1st part and 3rd part. Increasing size of extended with gparted (why didn't I just delete/recreate??) During the size increase, errored, and basically have intermittent access since.
I don't know what "intermittent access" means.

Sometimes when booting it finds the disk (lots of errors - sda1/sda2/sda3/sda5), other times doesn't find it at all.
What kind of errors? File system errors or unreadable sectors?

Is there any chance of recovery?
I don't know.
Have tried testdisk - can't find any partitions, even with a deep search?
Thanks, John.
When using a dual boot system containing Windows 10 as a choosable operating system you must ensure TOTAL shutdown of Windows 10. Otherwise you might risk killing drives and partitions that only look like being unmounted but in reality are mounted on a sleeping Windows 10 and uncompleted.

Looking at the title of your posting suggests creating a smartmontools log file for the so-called inaccessible disk and maybe duplicating that disk depending on the outcome of the smartmontools report:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10910

hornetster
Posts: 3
Joined: 05 Jan 2023, 08:28

Re: disk almost inaccessible

#3 Post by hornetster »

What was the partition table type? MBR or GPT?
MBR
Installed where exactly?
On a totally spearate disk.
I don't know what "intermittent access" means.
Sometimes when it boots, the PC detects the disk, other times, doesn't detect it at all.
What kind of errors? File system errors or unreadable sectors?
(See attachment)
Windows had an "automatic repair" that kept repeating.... Not sure if that could have been an indication that the disk was going bad? But, Windows does that anyway,,,

Thanks,
John.
Attachments
PXL_20230105_232944888.jpg
PXL_20230105_232944888.jpg (262.31 KiB) Viewed 1608 times

recuperation
Posts: 2720
Joined: 04 Jan 2019, 09:48
Location: Hannover, Deutschland (Germany, Allemagne)

Re: disk almost inaccessible

#4 Post by recuperation »

I am not familiar with this type of log but it appears to me like unredable sectors.
Check your SMART parameters:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10910

hornetster
Posts: 3
Joined: 05 Jan 2023, 08:28

Re: disk almost inaccessible

#5 Post by hornetster »

That is a screenshot of output, when booting the gparted iso, to give access to testdisk & photorec...

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