Lots of partitions found for md 1.2 RAID

[jimmy83]

Hey - I'm a little confused by the results here. I'd run it again and see what happens but it takes about 3 weeks to do a quick scan.

It should be a md1.2 RAID with 7 disks and a single ext4 partition.

Not sure why there are so many partitions being listed, or why lots of them are HFS. Trying to browse the file structure on the linux ones turns up an error that the filesystem may be corrupt.

Any ideas?

Code: Select all

TestDisk 7.2, Data Recovery Utility, February 2024
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
https://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/md1 - 60 TB / 54 TiB - CHS 14649454080 2 4
     Partition               Start        End    Size in sectors
 P Mac HFS                389822414  390053311     230898 [S/��~W~S�^SB\�~@]
�M��2���~@]               390789491  390994195     204705 [8y^T
 P Mac HFS                979894013 1001389822   21495810
 P Mac HFS               1222889695 1222897920       8226
 P Linux filesys. data   2045683858 2503979662  458295805
 P Mac HFS               2554837784 2590518041   35680258
 P Mac HFS               2971148931 2971423975     275045 ['^N^[2pٳF�]
 P Mac HFS               3017829733 3017983386     153654 [��^S :h�b~E~C^A^B]
 P Mac HFS               3104375106 3379102019  274726914
 P Mac HFS               3424229770 3459882379   35652610
 P Mac HFS               3749205226 3799602411   50397186
 P Mac HFS               4946912859 6154872412 1207959554
 P Linux filesys. data   6495677741 6502400696    6722956 [<Y^_0r^_�~R�}��^?�~J~R]
 P Mac HFS               6616231918 7698362351 1082130434
 P Linux filesys. data   7864125287 7871489569    7364283 [$~H~S1^O^A�~^~B^G�9��M�]
 P Mac HFS               8950136263 9588981192  638844930
 P Mac HFS               11364503098 12439293499 1074790402
 P Mac HFS               12720661908 12756346809   35684902 [f^L^W(T~A^A�^D^F^D]
 P Mac HFS               13238320554 14316256683 1077936130
 P Linux filesys. data   15739128747 21106517018 5367388272 [^XéZ��]
 P Linux filesys. data   23526120440 23531375150    5254711 [|~St^O�"s^U�^B�5~D~T^[^P]
 P Linux filesys. data   24081764208 24088571697    6807490 [�v;y�Fz~DF^^g~M^G��]
 P Linux filesys. data   28052019687 28057703259    5683573 [�P^I��cG^B����}�]
 P Mac HFS               31094440018 31098634323    4194306
 P Mac HFS               31592938141 33071430302 1478492162 [^R^X*@X��^E~H^T^T]
 P Mac HFS               33167314186 33201191810   33877625 [~V�~[Y�?~J���f`^U^R^Q~N^G~t��#|F]
 P Mac HFS               36188070474 36256285615   68215142 [�h¶��~W��^X^B��k]
 P Linux filesys. data   42997267529 43002489696    5222168 [�~Xr'�^T^_�^W�]*�YT�]
>P Mac HFS               45189314735 45199833264   10518530
 P Mac HFS               49715389516 49715391565       2050
 P Mac HFS               53184644973 53662832750  478187778 [^D8^P^E|~@]
 P Mac HFS               55038159564 55042353869    4194306
 P Linux filesys. data   55168158091 55174829693    6671603 [^��\�~W�~F��@e~Y1��]
 P Mac HFS               58238123661 58308116110   69992450
�4��)�^V3�j��uz]. data   62885638279 62885966711     328433 [1
 P Mac HFS               68392744149 68396973278    4229130 [^A~^`tG�]
 P Linux filesys. data   71593266707 71599044382    5777676 [1I�^C~V���T^G^S~\^Qh]
 P Mac HFS               79009213979 81706151452 2696937474
 P Mac HFS               82414655922 82418885045    4229124 [~@]
 P Mac HFS               84661874122 85207133643  545259522 [�묲��(~R^G���/L~R��0?^C�<��6Idb2�]
 P Linux filesys. data   89654640318 89655252154     611837 [�+3^C��&��
 P Mac HFS               90004158233 90645624602  641466370
 P MS Data               97662759936 117195629567 19532869632
Structure: Ok.  Use Up/Down Arrow keys to select partition.
Use Left/Right Arrow keys to CHANGE partition characteristics:
                P=Primary  D=Deleted
Keys A: add partition, L: load backup, T: change type,
     Enter: to continue
HFS blocksize=2097152, 5385 MB / 5136 MiB

There was also this before

IMG_1438.jpeg (126.62 KiB) Viewed 1671 times

[recuperation]

False positives!

The only thing that reliably qualifies a partition as a valid partition is an entry in the partition table - regardless if you are using the old MBR structure or the new GPT one.

Testdisk presents you a proposal which sectors look like the boot sector of a partition.
But what might look like a boot sector of a partition may very well be the content of another one.
If Testdisk understands the type of file system inside this supposed partition you have the possibility to browse its content to see if you discover your known content. If you recognize its content you have all reasons to consider this entry that you examined is a valid partition.

On the other hand, the boot sector may be valid but due to destruction inside the partition you don't see anything and might falsely assume that this boot sector is not the start of the partition.

It seems that in my personal case fifteen years ago a couple of VMWare disks were internally organised like "real" disks and partitions. Testdisk showed me a bunch of partitions which had never been there.
At the time I was lacking the fantasy to guess that possible reason.

[jimmy83]

Thanks for the reply mate

Basically, you’re saying it’s dead, yeah?

Edit: none of it is boot, it’s just a GPT RAID. Are you saying setting everything to ext4 might find a working entry?

[recuperation]

Thanks for the reply mate

Basically, you’re saying it’s dead, yeah?

No, I just answered your implied question in "Not sure why..."

Edit: none of it is boot, it’s just a GPT RAID. Are you saying setting everything to ext4 might find a working entry?

Incomprehensible.

[jimmy83]

I might not have been very clear on my response.

I'm not really sure what to do next from this point. It appears that none of the partitions it has found are large enough to be the one I'm looking for. I assume writing something incorrect will make it irrecoverable, if it's not already.