Can not change a partition to anything but Deleted or Primary

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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dozerbuck
Posts: 1
Joined: 02 Mar 2022, 22:26

Can not change a partition to anything but Deleted or Primary

#1 Post by dozerbuck »

Hello all -

I recently started to help my Father in Law save a laptop by working on cloning the hardrive to a new SSD.

The computer started to function very slowly - so I did the typical replace the ram and clone the harddrive.

The original harddrive is a standard 2.5 slim 500GB HDD. Upon some simple scans it found 1400 bad sectors so I attempted to run chkdsk to stabilize the drive in order to clone it.

I ended up using a live USB with Fedora 35 and clone the drive with ddrescue.

I currently have that new SSD in the laptop and have been working to correct the partition table and correct any errors on it that I can. It does not boot.

I have used testdisk to create the proper table structure, but ever time i write it out it seems to create a duplicate partition. I also am unable to make any of the partitions marked as bootable.

My question is simply - once i have the correct file structure setup - why does testdisk not allow me to choose any options outside of Deleted or Primary?

What appear to be my next steps to getting this new SSD to boot on the laptop?

I have tried the windows 10 install/repair usb and used bootsec.....that does not work.

I have created screen grabs as I go through testdisk and also created a log. I also have screen grabbed what appears to be the correct structure from "Disks" on my Fedora build of Linux.
recuperation
Posts: 3036
Joined: 04 Jan 2019, 09:48
Location: Hannover, Deutschland (Germany, Allemagne)

Re: Can not change a partition to anything but Deleted or Primary

#2 Post by recuperation »

dozerbuck wrote: 02 Mar 2022, 22:45 Hello all -

I recently started to help my Father in Law save a laptop by working on cloning the hardrive to a new SSD.

The computer started to function very slowly - so I did the typical replace the ram and clone the harddrive.

The original harddrive is a standard 2.5 slim 500GB HDD. Upon some simple scans it found 1400 bad sectors so I attempted to run chkdsk to stabilize the drive in order to clone it.
This is the wrong order for recovery purposes.

I ended up using a live USB with Fedora 35 and clone the drive with ddrescue.

I currently have that new SSD in the laptop and have been working to correct the partition table and correct any errors on it that I can.
It does not boot.

I have used testdisk to create the proper table structure, but ever time i write it out it seems to create a duplicate partition. I also am unable to make any of the partitions marked as bootable.
That error documentation is miserable - unfortunately.

My question is simply - once i have the correct file structure setup - why does testdisk not allow me to choose any options outside of Deleted or Primary?
How should I know based on that lousy description?

What appear to be my next steps to getting this new SSD to boot on the laptop?
Try to rescue data that you cannot reproduce and save the data to another healthy drive.

I have tried the windows 10 install/repair usb and used bootsec.....that does not work.
Considering the existence of 1400 bad sectors that does not come as a surprise to me.

I have created screen grabs as I go through testdisk and also created a log.
That is a very good idea but somehow I can't profit from it.
I also have screen grabbed what appears to be the correct structure from "Disks" on my Fedora build of Linux.
I doubt a linux setup is an example to copy for Windows repair 10 purposes.

I have no experience with Windows 10. Please search another specialised forum for support or buy services from Microsoft to "repair" your heavily dammaged installation.
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