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I have an external hard drive that recently stopped working. It's not showing up when I plugged it in. When I looked in Disk Management the hard drive is shown as being not initialized, unknown and unallocated. Someone advised me to boot into Linux Mint and run TestDisk. When I did that and ran Analyze I get No partition found or selected for recovery after both Quck Search and Deeper Search. There are important data on the drive so what are my next steps? Due to the character limit I posted a partial log below. I skipped a portion of the input/output error. Thanks.

Mon Sep 25 12:05:10 2023
Command line: TestDisk

TestDisk 7.1, Data Recovery Utility, July 2019
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
https://www.cgsecurity.org
OS: Linux, kernel 5.15.0-76-generic (#83-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jun 15 19:16:32 UTC 2023) x86_64
Compiler: GCC 11.2
ext2fs lib: 1.46.5, ntfs lib: libntfs-3g, reiserfs lib: none, ewf lib: none, curses lib: ncurses 6.3
User is not root!
Hard disk list


TestDisk exited normally.
Using locale 'C.UTF-8'.


Mon Sep 25 12:05:10 2023
Command line: TestDisk /debug

TestDisk 7.1, Data Recovery Utility, July 2019
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
https://www.cgsecurity.org
OS: Linux, kernel 5.15.0-76-generic (#83-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jun 15 19:16:32 UTC 2023) x86_64
Compiler: GCC 11.2
ext2fs lib: 1.46.5, ntfs lib: libntfs-3g, reiserfs lib: none, ewf lib: none, curses lib: ncurses 6.3
Warning: can't get size for Disk /dev/mapper/control - 0 B - 0 sectors, sector size=512
Warning: can't get size for Disk /dev/loop1 - 0 B - 0 sectors, sector size=512
Warning: can't get size for Disk /dev/loop2 - 0 B - 0 sectors, sector size=512
Warning: can't get size for Disk /dev/loop3 - 0 B - 0 sectors, sector size=512
Warning: can't get size for Disk /dev/loop4 - 0 B - 0 sectors, sector size=512
Warning: can't get size for Disk /dev/loop5 - 0 B - 0 sectors, sector size=512
Warning: can't get size for Disk /dev/loop6 - 0 B - 0 sectors, sector size=512
Warning: can't get size for Disk /dev/loop7 - 0 B - 0 sectors, sector size=512
Hard disk list
Disk /dev/sda - 4000 GB / 3726 GiB - CHS 3815447 64 32, sector size=512 - PHD 3.0 Silicon-Power
Disk /dev/sdb - 494 GB / 460 GiB - CHS 60083 255 63, sector size=512 - USB SanDisk 3.2Gen1, FW:1.00
Disk /dev/sdc - 4142 MB / 3950 MiB - CHS 1019 128 62, sector size=512 - StoreJet Transcend
Disk /dev/dm-0 - 3026 MB / 2886 MiB - 5910964 sectors (RO), sector size=512 - USB SanDisk 3.2Gen1, FW:1.00
Disk /dev/loop0 - 2852 MB / 2720 MiB - 5571712 sectors (RO), sector size=512
Disk /dev/nvme0n1 - 512 GB / 476 GiB - CHS 488386 64 32, sector size=512
Disk /dev/nvme1n1 - 1000 GB / 931 GiB - CHS 953869 64 32, sector size=512

Partition table type defaults to Intel
Disk /dev/sdc - 4142 MB / 3950 MiB - StoreJet Transcend
Partition table type: Intel

Analyse Disk /dev/sdc - 4142 MB / 3950 MiB - CHS 1019 128 62
Current partition structure:

Partition: Read error

search_part()
Disk /dev/sdc - 4142 MB / 3950 MiB - CHS 1019 128 62
file_pread(6,16,buffer,32(0/0/33)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,3,buffer,48(0/0/49)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,3,buffer,95(0/1/34)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,8,buffer,111(0/1/50)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,11,buffer,158(0/2/35)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,2,buffer,2080(0/33/35)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,2,buffer,51(0/0/52)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,2,buffer,98(0/1/37)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,2,buffer,119(0/1/58)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,2,buffer,169(0/2/46)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,2,buffer,2082(0/33/37)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,16,buffer,62(0/1/1)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,3,buffer,78(0/1/17)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,3,buffer,125(0/2/2)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,8,buffer,141(0/2/18)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,11,buffer,188(0/3/3)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,2,buffer,2110(0/34/3)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,1,buffer,81(0/1/20)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,1,buffer,128(0/2/5)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,1,buffer,149(0/2/26)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,1,buffer,199(0/3/14)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,1,buffer,2112(0/34/5)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,16,buffer,992(0/16/1)) read err: Input/output error
file_pread(6,3,buffer,1008(0/16/17)) read err: Input/output error

This goes on for a while. Skipped to the end.

Results

interface_write()

No partition found or selected for recovery
simulate write!

write_mbr_i386: starting...
file_pread(6,1,buffer,0(0/0/1)) read err: Input/output error

Partition: Read error
Store new MBR code
write_all_log_i386: starting...
No extended partition

TestDisk exited normally.

johnpiggy wrote: 25 Sep 2023, 13:35 I have an external hard drive that recently stopped working. It's not showing up when I plugged it in. When I looked in Disk Management the hard drive is shown as being not initialized, unknown and unallocated. Someone advised me to boot into Linux Mint and run TestDisk. When I did that and ran Analyze I get No partition found or selected for recovery after both Quck Search and Deeper Search. There are important data on the drive so what are my next steps? Due to the character limit I posted a partial log below. I skipped a portion of the input/output error. Thanks.

Thank you for posting a case description that I understood when I read it the for the first time!
The read errors in the report suggest that you have an hardware issue with your Transcend StoreJet device.
That is a case for a professional recovery service, using any software recovery solution might only worsen your situation.

I saw someone mention using ddrescue to the clone the disk. Would that work or would that make things worse?

Any user intervention can make things worse.
As the read errors already start at the beginning of the drive taking into account your import data I would not recommend it.

Okay, thank you for the info.