Disk seems too small - Now what?

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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Author
MarkD
Posts: 3
Joined: 22 Jun 2012, 01:27

Disk seems too small - Now what?

#1 Post by MarkD »

All -

First this forum is an absolute life saver! I've read countless posts, and each time it appears people get the assistance they need. I sure hope someone can help me. My wife is in the other room packing up my stuff and about to kick me out of the house!

What Happened:

Actually I don't exactly know.... I have a DLINK-323 NAS device. Loaded in it were 2 500GB drives setup in a RAID-1 configuration. The other morning the drive was no longer responsive and when I tried to reboot the DLINK it requested that I format the drives. Long story short, neither drive works anymore regardless of slot. I mounted the drives in a desktop SATA to USB platform, and my windows PC can not open either one. (I have the ext2/3 utility so I can open other ext2/ext3 drives on my PC - just not these 2). My assumption is that something went wrong with a "write" at some point killing 1 of the drives, and the RAID-1 did exactly as it was instructed and took out the 2nd drive as well. Mechanical failure is unlikely given the simultaneous nature of what happened.

What I'm trying to do:

I am now using testdisk on my PC with one of the drives accessed via the USB SATA box. The basic analyse tells me the drive appears too small. When I do the deeper search, 2 deleted partitions are found, in addition to a partition labeled Linux Swap (Note this is just a data disk - no need to boot from it). On one of the deleted partitions I can see my old files. The other partition, the list file option is not available. From here I mark the deleted partition with my files as "P" for primary and I leave the other partition as "D". The Linux Swap partition remains with a "*". I then hit "W" to write out the partition info, and then Y to confirm. Testdisk tells me to reboot, and then I hit okay. Well it appears that nothing actually happens.
Initial analyse results
Initial analyse results
analyse-result.JPG (41.1 KiB) Viewed 4288 times
Results of the deeper search - with the partition I need to recover highlighted
Results of the deeper search - with the partition I need to recover highlighted
deeper-results.JPG (48.64 KiB) Viewed 4288 times
Some questions:
* Is writing out the new partition information with "w" the correct step, or does something else need to be fixed first?

* Given my setup, I assume reboot just means restart my USB/SATA device. Do I keep testdisk running or do I restart that as well?

* The deep search takes probably about 90 minutes. Can I stop it as soon as it finds the deleted partition with my files on it (30 seconds) or do I need it to find the 2nd deleted partition (45 minutes), or do I need it to finish all the way? I only ask because every time I've done the "write" step, nothing has happened and I've had to repeat stuff.

I have the testdisk log, but I'm not sure on the best way to post it. The final lines of the log file are as follows:

interface_write()
1 * Linux Swap 0 1 1 65 254 63 1060227
2 P Linux 66 0 1 60637 254 63 973089180
write!

write_mbr_i386: starting...
write_all_log_i386: starting...
No extended partition
Need to fix
2 P Linux 66 0 1 60637 254 63 973089180
ext2 blocksize=4096 Sparse superblock Backup superblock, 498 GB / 464 GiB
You will have to reboot for the change to take effect.

TestDisk exited normally.


Thanks,
Mark
Attachments
Results of the deeper search - with the other unknown partition highlighted
Results of the deeper search - with the other unknown partition highlighted
deeper-results2.JPG (46.97 KiB) Viewed 4288 times
Last edited by MarkD on 22 Jun 2012, 13:34, edited 1 time in total.

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

Re: Disk seems too small - Now what?

#2 Post by Fiona »

I'd need some infos from TestDisk Analyse and Quick Search.
Would it be possible to upload some screens?
If no partition containing your data are found, I'd need Deeper Search also.
After diagnose, would it be possible to upload the testdisk.log also?
It should be zipped.

Fiona

MarkD
Posts: 3
Joined: 22 Jun 2012, 01:27

Re: Disk seems too small - Now what?

#3 Post by MarkD »

Fiona - I modified my original post with the screen shots. Also attached here is the zipped testdisk log.

Thanks,
Mark
Attachments
testdisk.zip
testdisk log
(3.45 KiB) Downloaded 376 times

MarkD
Posts: 3
Joined: 22 Jun 2012, 01:27

Re: Disk seems too small - Now what?

#4 Post by MarkD »

All - Just wanted to check again to see if anyone had a chance to take a look at the screen shots or log I posted. I'm still looking for help. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark

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

Re: Disk seems too small - Now what?

#5 Post by Fiona »

In your case, it looks like your superblock is damaged.
Your partition is in your partition table.
That's why there is no necessity to fix your partition table.
You should use the menu Advanced / Spuerblock to determine the values.
Afterwards you should run fsck with the provided values.
Explanation is here;
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Advanced ... SuperBlock
Please let me know.

Fiona

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