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Hello! I have a 1TB WD external drive that was used to archive photos, emails, etc.

After a bad power cycle windows decided that it was bootable media but there are no OS images on it. Trying to open the is slow, painful, and generally ends with explorer rebooting. chkdsk says it's a RAW file which lines up with a few other symptoms, and going through the documentation has lead me to a few questions;

1. My first inclination was to follow the deleted partition using Testdisk; chapter 9. Following the documentation is flawless until I do the Quick Search at which point Testdisk seemingly hangs and doesn't do anything for 24 hours plus, is that normal? Should I just let it run?

2. Second Idea was to follow the 7.5 TestDisk: Repairing FAT boot sector, but I'm not sure if that's applicable as this drive was never meant to be bootable in the first place

3. Third idea was to try PhotoRec for "deleted files" but i don't think that really applies as none of the files are deleted, windows is just seeing the drive incorrectly.

Apologies for the simple questions, first time doing this and want to do it right.

The impression of TestDisk not being able to continue may be caused be a broken disk with unreadable sectors which would require duplicating the disk using ddrescue as described in the manual.

Here is a little guide how to extract disk health data:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10910

Looking at the SMART parameters provides you with more information hopefully enabling you to make a better decision what to do.