Western Digital 3TB SATA HD NO Partition Recovery

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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abzkahn
Posts: 6
Joined: 20 Jul 2012, 18:45

Western Digital 3TB SATA HD NO Partition Recovery

#1 Post by abzkahn »

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could help me navigate through testdisk.

I have done quick search and deeper search but it does not bring up any partitions.

When I connect this drive to the computer it doesn't come up on my computer, but shows up on disk management stating the drive is not initialised and I need to pick a partition style.

Am I doing something wrong? As there is/was atleast a good 2TB of data on my hard drive.

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

Re: Western Digital 3TB SATA HD NO Partition Recovery

#2 Post by Fiona »

//I'll remove your crossposting!

Would it be possible to upload a screen shot from, your disk management console and from TestDisk Analyse also?

abzkahn
Posts: 6
Joined: 20 Jul 2012, 18:45

Re: Western Digital 3TB SATA HD NO Partition Recovery

#3 Post by abzkahn »

Yea sorry about that!

Yes I will upload a screen shot from disk management. Analaysing the hard drive takes a long time, im using a sata power adaptor to USB 2.0 should I just connect it in my pc, would this speed up the analysing process?
Last edited by abzkahn on 20 Jul 2012, 19:40, edited 1 time in total.

abzkahn
Posts: 6
Joined: 20 Jul 2012, 18:45

Re: Western Digital 3TB SATA HD NO Partition Recovery

#4 Post by abzkahn »

ps2.jpg
ps2.jpg (201.76 KiB) Viewed 3786 times

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

Re: Western Digital 3TB SATA HD NO Partition Recovery

#5 Post by Fiona »

Currently ther is no partition in your partition table.
It's not initialized and empty.
Since W2k a disk must be initialized, that TestDisk can handle it.
Did you use it before externally?
Is there a description on your disk about advanced format drive?
Is important to determine, to set it up as Intel or GPT-Disk.
Was your disk before internally and a GPT disk?

Fiona

abzkahn
Posts: 6
Joined: 20 Jul 2012, 18:45

Re: Western Digital 3TB SATA HD NO Partition Recovery

#6 Post by abzkahn »

It was used before externally as a western digital my essential 3tb.

The hard drive wouldn't turn on automatically when connecting the usb cable in it, even when I turned it on from the back it still wouldn't even recognise it in disk management.

I opened the enclosure to just get the hard drive on its own, and connected it using my sata adaptor.

Disk runs and crystal disk brings up as everything is fine.

I can't upload another screenshot as my quota has been reached.

I have no idea if the disk is an advanced format drive, but when selecting options from test disk I chose intel, but i'm not sure what it really is.

It may actualy be a GPT, as the maximum on an MBR is 2tb right?

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

Re: Western Digital 3TB SATA HD NO Partition Recovery

#7 Post by Fiona »

MBR is limited to 2.2 TB.
Some manufacturer increased sectorsize from 512 Bytes up to 4096 Bytes (4 KB).
That's why it's possible that MBR can handle disks up to 16 TB.
It's mostly dedicated to external disks.
Internal disks will emulate it as 512 Bytes sector.
So you have 2.2 TB again.

I have no idea if Seagate is going to encrypt their disk like WD does.
You should carefully check it.
We'll not get acces to an encrypted disk.
If you change anything to your disk and it's encrypted, you'll almost not get any possibility to get your data off of your disk.
That's why it should be excluded before you change something.
If you're sure;
You could have a try to initialize your disk and convert it to GPT.
If you only have had one partition using the whole space, we could create another one and diagnose your boot sector to get your data.

But before I recommend something I'd like to know exactly that you didn't have any hardware encryption in your enclosure.

Fiona

abzkahn
Posts: 6
Joined: 20 Jul 2012, 18:45

Re: Western Digital 3TB SATA HD NO Partition Recovery

#8 Post by abzkahn »

After looking at the specs in detail, it does appear that the hard drive enclosure did have hardware encryption.

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/7318102 ... pix-review

I didn't even think about that! I didn't put any password encryption on though.

Is there anything that can be done now?

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