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I have an external 4TB WD hard drive that is encrypted with BitLocker. As it often happens, everything was fine until suddenly, it stopped being recognized by Windows (all available versions from 7 to 11). In Disk Management, it is listed but marked as "Unallocated." I know there should be exactly 1 partion present.

Diskpart didn't help me, so I looked for another tool and found TestDisk. However, it requires a lot of technical knowledge, which I don't have at the necessary depth. Depending on whether I select [Intel] or [EFI GPT] as the type, I get different results.


When I choose [Intel] and then [Analyze], I get this output:


When I select [EFI GPT] and [Analyze], I get this:



After performing a [Quick Search], I get some very strange messages. One tells me to check the jumpers because the disk is larger than 4TB, and another displays odd characters and says that no partition was found.

The analysis with [Intel] shows a GPT partition. I assume it needs to be activated somehow or something similar. I just don't see how to do that.

How should I proceed? I lack deeper knowledge about disk structures, etc.

Sorry that the images are being posted here again. Somehow, I didn't understand how to insert them without attaching them.

Please post your log file.

Hi,

here is one

...I have tried a lot, so may be the log is full of tests.

The following assumes your broken disk is still mounted in its external enclosure:

According to the log file, your disk has a sector size of 512 bytes. Given a total size of 4 TB, only the GPT structure is possible if you had the whole space partitioned into just one partition.

Partitions do not disappear randomly.
To learn what your hard disk thinks about its health run smartmontools and post the log file.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10910

Afterwards, cloning the disk might be useful, as the TestDisk analysis is stressing the disk when it is not healthy.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previ ... 1(v=ws.11)

The third part would be running TestDisk in GPT mode. If the quick search does not find anything, I am unsecure if the deep search will find more due to the encryption.
There are instructions with regards to Bitlocker in the manual.
If the original disk is broken, cloning the cloned disk a second time would be recommended because the operation of the Microsoft repair-bde command cannot be reverted as far as I know.

Hi,

I tried to understand the explanations, but I had to give up—I just couldn't get my head around some of the terms on my own.

So, I looked for more help and found a tool (MiniTool Partition Wizard). It wasn't free, but it was very useful. Installed it, two clicks, confirmed, and the partition was back. Assigned a drive letter, entered the BitLocker password, and then copied the entire drive.

The recovery, including installing the tool, took less than five minutes—the copying process, of course, took several hours. But everything went smoothly.

Thanks for your support!

I'm sure your tool is great, but I just don't have the technical knowledge to fully understand it. In the end, I just wanted everything to work again.