cgsecurity.org

Hi.
I have an external hard drive that has kept being ejected by a faulty USB port and showed up as a local disk with raw partitions. I was told to try out testdisk to fix the partition and recover files.
All was sort of going well regarding a scan when my surface pro decided to lock me out. After restarting, I was able to see the original drive name and was hopeful I could recover files.

It asked me to write a partition table and I did. I rebooted and the drive clicked and loaded up as local disk again. I was running the software on a surface pro and as the surface only has 1 USB port, I plugged in a Seagate drive with built in USB ports and plugged the broken drive into that in order to follow the next steps. The drive stopped appearing and now I'm fairly stuck.

If I run testdisk again, new log, analyse, Intel and scan, a drive shows up with no partition 4142 MB/ 3950 MiB
If I look in Disk Management, it asks me to initialise disk with either MBR or GUID and shows a not initialised disk with 3.86GB unallocated space.

I felt like I was so close and may have nuked any chance of recovering this drive myself, but the surface doesn't have enough space to recover the files hence plugging in the Seagate.

What are my options?
I have access to everything from analyse to delete.
If I analyse and do a quick search, I get the option to add a partition or load backup. With no backup, I can only add, but I don't know what that will do to the rest of the drive if anything.

Any help, even being pointed to somewhere else with an answer would greatly help.

This is a 2 or 3GB Lacie drive nearly full with the last few years of photos. I can't afford to lose these.

BTW, prior to the reboot, the drive would spin up but now it spins for a second, clicks and goes quiet.

Many thanks

Kingkongballs wrote: 22 Jun 2020, 00:00 Hi.
I have an external hard drive that has kept being ejected by a faulty USB port and showed up as a local disk with raw

Although you knew your USB port is faulty you kept your hard drive connected? This is not a good idea.

partitions. I was told to try out testdisk to fix the partition and recover files.
All was sort of going well regarding a scan when my surface pro decided to lock me out. After restarting, I was able to see the original drive name and was hopeful I could recover files.

It asked me to write a partition table and I did.

Read the documentation. Seeing the drive name and writing a partition table after analysis without checking the partitions is not good.

https://www.cgsecurity.org/testdisk.pdf
https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

I rebooted and the drive clicked and loaded up as local disk again. I was running the software on a surface pro and as the surface only has 1 USB port, I plugged in a Seagate drive with built in USB ports and plugged the broken drive into that in order to follow the next steps. The drive stopped appearing and now I'm fairly stuck.

Using a conventional computer, a desktop or a notebook appears more suitable for me when it's about to recover data from a drive. Using a hard drive with a built-in USB may not deliver the power needed especially in case of 2,5'' drives that come without an own power supply.

If I run testdisk again, new log, analyse, Intel and scan, a drive shows up with no partition 4142 MB/ 3950 MiB
If I look in Disk Management, it asks me to initialise disk with either MBR or GUID and shows a not initialised disk with 3.86GB unallocated space.

A linux machine or a runtime linux on a USB stick is more suitable because there is less risk to write on the questionnable drive accidentally.

I felt like I was so close and may have nuked any chance of recovering this drive myself, but the surface doesn't have enough space to recover the files hence plugging in the Seagate.

See my comment above.

This is a 2 or 3GB Lacie drive nearly full with the last few years of photos. I can't afford to lose these.

Based on your description above combined with this statement there is just one solution:
Ask a professional recovery service.

BTW, prior to the reboot, the drive would spin up but now it spins for a second, clicks and goes quiet.

This suggests you either have a power supply issue or an already broken drive.

Thanks for your reply.
To clarify, the rear USB ports had died out over time and I had the drive plugged into a front port. Turned the computer on and it disconnected and reconnected about 3 or 4 times within a minute or two before giving me the error. Prior to that, I hadn't had any problems with the front ports.

I was following instructions I found from someone in a similar position who had reached a similar stage to me, so I progressed with their steps.
I'll take a read of the documentation you linked and will see if there's anything possible. I'll also look at a new power supply. The drive is still on (little white light) but not spinning.

Many thanks