Trying to find a missing partition

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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bbsmitz
Posts: 1
Joined: 06 Mar 2026, 02:37

Trying to find a missing partition

#1 Post by bbsmitz »

Hi Folks,

I have a hard drive from an HP machine that randomly just stopped showing up in windows. I swapped it to another computer and it's the same issue. Disk management shows it as unpartitioned.

Image

I loaded and ran testdisk, and when I get to the step where I try to find the partition, it just shows "Partition: Read Error"

Image

I don't have the ability to do anything past that; hitting enter to try to do a quick search doesn't seem to function. I relaunched and tried to use a different format (used both Intel and EFI GPT) but no dice. The log is below.

Code: Select all



Thu Mar  5 21:28:35 2026
Command line: TestDisk

TestDisk 7.2, Data Recovery Utility, February 2024
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
https://www.cgsecurity.org
OS: Windows 8 (9200)
Compiler: GCC 11.2, Cygwin 3001.4
ext2fs lib: 1.45.3, ntfs lib: available, reiserfs lib: none, ewf lib: 20140608, curses lib: ncurses 6.1
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\PhysicalDrive0)=10000831348736
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\PhysicalDrive1)=10000831348736
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\PhysicalDrive2)=1000204886016
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\PhysicalDrive3)=2000398934016
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\PhysicalDrive4)=2000398934016
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\C:)=1999721463808
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\D:)=2000397795328
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\E:)=504348672
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\F:)=10000812474368
disk_get_size_win32 IOCTL_DISK_GET_LENGTH_INFO(\\.\G:)=10000812474368
Hard disk list
Disk \\.\PhysicalDrive0 - 10000 GB / 9314 GiB - CHS 1215865 255 63, sector size=512 - ST10000NM0086-2AA101, S/N:ZA2DK2XN, FW:SN05
Disk \\.\PhysicalDrive1 - 10000 GB / 9314 GiB - CHS 1215865 255 63, sector size=512 - ST10000NM0086-2AA101, S/N:ZA2DLT1D, FW:SN05
Disk \\.\PhysicalDrive2 - 1000 GB / 931 GiB - CHS 121601 255 63, sector size=512 - ST1000DM014-2UB10D, S/N:ZFL6Y1TD, FW:VQ01
Disk \\.\PhysicalDrive3 - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - CHS 243201 255 63, sector size=512 - Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 2TB, S/N:0025_3859_01AE_3ED6., FW:2B2QEXM7
Disk \\.\PhysicalDrive4 - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - CHS 243201 255 63, sector size=512 - Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 2TB, S/N:0025_3859_01AE_3F0D., FW:2B2QEXM7
Drive E: - 504 MB / 480 MiB - CHS 120 64 32, sector size=2048 - ASUS DRW-24B3ST   j, FW:1.11

Partition table type defaults to Intel
Disk \\.\PhysicalDrive2 - 1000 GB / 931 GiB - ST1000DM014-2UB10D
Partition table type: Intel

Interface Advanced

Analyse Disk \\.\PhysicalDrive2 - 1000 GB / 931 GiB - CHS 121601 255 63
Current partition structure:

Partition: Read error
The crystal disk info is below as well.

Image

I'm sort of at a loss here.. any ideas on how to proceed?
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recuperation
Posts: 3129
Joined: 04 Jan 2019, 09:48
Location: Hannover, Deutschland (Germany, Allemagne)

Re: Trying to find a missing partition

#2 Post by recuperation »

TestDisk has not been designed to cope with broken devices containing unreadable sectors (see number of reallocated and pending sectors).
Clone your broken disk using ddrescue as described in a manual.
Clone your clone a second time, do not rely on being able to clone your defective device another time.

Run TestDisk again the second clone.
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