External Hard drive not showing

riclad

No need to make the partition bootable,
Try fix fat32 boot sector in testdisk.

Did you try
chkdsk e: /f ,
or chkdsk k: /f

depending what the drive is called. k or e.

External partition is NOT meant to be bootable.

riclad

Follow the advice here,
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

royster999

Windows chkdsk utility worked fine on the internal dries off latop.
However when run against the external hard drive all it did was recognise it was a FAT32 disk then threw an XP Windows chkdsk program failure.

This sometimes happens on XP when right clicking on an external drive.

I downloaded another chkdsk utility and got the same problem.

royster999

riclad wrote: »

Follow the advice here,
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

I followed those steps. It showed I had one partition and no errors.
How do I check and repair the FAT32 boot sector ?

degsie

At this point it might be advisable to remove the external drive from it's enclosure and attach directly to a PC and attempt the recovery from there. There may be issues with the external enclosure electronics due to using the incorrect spec power adapter.

riclad

degsie wrote: »

At this point it might be advisable to remove the external drive from it's enclosure and attach directly to a PC and attempt the recovery from there. There may be issues with the external enclosure electronics due to using the incorrect spec power adapter.

I think you need to follow the instructions from here,

in my previous link.

A partition is still missing: Deeper Search ,

ie start the recover process from Deeper search line, below .

Deeper Search will also search for FAT32 backup boot sector, NTFS backup boot superblock, ext2/ext3 backup superblock to detect more partitions,
it will scan each cylinder eg start here.


that fixes the boot sector.
follow the commands.
see what happens , See do,es it work.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step


OR else use this,

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm


http://www.easeus.com/tutorial/drw-free-user-guide.html

use Partition recovery in easeus program,
read the user guide first.

easus is maybe easier for a non expert to use than Testdisk.

I usually just use recuva program to recover data on my own pc.

royster999

Thanks for those links, will try again.
Think I did the deeper search but it came back with similar results, although I was weary at that stage..

Am also going to try and fix the chkdsk utility. Seen a program online which fixes shell32 anomalies.

riclad

You should be able to fix it using the above links.
Chkdsk may work after you have used testdisk ,
or the eausus program in my link.
Chkdsk itself will not fix recover fat32 file or fix the mbr ,
master boot record.

IF you want the recover the data,it,ll take maybe 30 minutes plus .
To use the programs in the links in my previous post.

royster999

Some success last night. When I ran the List Files function in TestDisk, I could see my files listed.

When I ran the Deeper Search function it took ~30mins to analyse 500 / 121,000 blocks on the disk... So I will have to let it run for a couple of days.
It did find 2 block errors out of that 500.

I will kick it off again this evening.

riclad

I used recuva to recover 14gig on a 16gig card,
it would take about 50 minutes to do a full deep scan.
card showed up as 16gig sdcard unformatted in my computer.
it listed all files ,even files i deleted in the last 2 months,
so files were marked ,low quality , so i did,nt even try to recover them.
About 1gig was free space ,unused.

royster999

The deeper search complete and it showed I had issue with FAT32 boot sector:

TestDisk 7.0-WIP, Data Recovery Utility, April 2014
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/sdb - 1000 GB / 931 GiB - CHS 121601 255 63
     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors
1 P FAT32 LBA                0   1  1 121599 254 63 1953503937 [Elements]

Boot sector
OK

Backup boot sector
OK

First sectors (Boot code and partition information) are not identical.
Second sectors (cluster information) are not identical.
Third sectors (Second part of boot code) are not identical.

A valid FAT Boot sector must be present in order to access
any data; even if the partition is not bootable.

I selected copy backup boot to primary boot sector as per steps, then rebuild BS.

Once this was complete I see the following:

Disk /dev/sdb - 1000 GB / 931 GiB - CHS 121601 255 63
     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors
 1 P FAT32 LBA                0   1  1 121599 254 63 1953503937 [Elements]

Boot sector
OK

Backup boot sector
OK

Sectors are identical.

A valid FAT Boot sector must be present in order to access
any data; even if the partition is not bootable.

>[  Quit  ]  [  List  ]  [Rebuild BS]  [  Dump  ]  [Repair FAT]
                            Return to Advanced menu

So the Boot sector is still not valid.
When I try and connect to disk I get error that disk is not formatted.
If I reformat to NTFS through Winows option, will I lose all data ?

I also have option of trying the Repair FAT option though it says this should be run by an expert only.

riclad

i think fat sector is fat32,


read this .




http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Advanced_FAT_Repair
first .
choose recover fat boot sector.

use list to check if it works.





if that does not work try ,
Rebuild a valid FAT boot sector
There is no backup boot sector for FAT12 and FAT16, so if the boot sector is damaged, it has to be recreated. The same thing applies for FAT32 if both the boot sector and its backup are corrupted. TestDisk can rebuild a FAT boot sector. Choose RebuildBS in the menu - it's safe and doesn't modify the disk. Use List to check the result and Write if you have been able to list your files.


if it works , use write , if your files are listed.





choose fat boot sector rebuild.

If FAT32:
It finds the root cluster;
Creates a boot sector with this information;
Asks the user if he wants to write this new boot sector or not.
The user can also list the files of the FAT partition.



Use List to check the result and Write if you have been able to list your files.


Post back here with results, or questions if you need more detailed advice.

SO you are trying to recover the fat32 sector or you may have to recreate it.

royster999

Have problems when it trys to repair boot sector:

Disk /dev/sdb - 1000 GB / 931 GiB - CHS 121601 255 63
Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors
 1 P FAT32 LBA                0   1  1 121599 254 63 1953503937 [Elements]

FAT : 32
cluster_size 64 0
reserved     32 0
total_sect   1953503937 0
fat32_length 238407 0
root_cluster 0 0
free_count   uninitialised 0
next_free    uninitialised 0
Extrapolated boot sector and current boot sector are different.
Warning: Extrapolated boot sector have incorrect values.

 [  Dump  ]  [  List  ]  [ Write  ] >[  Quit  ]

When I list files, there are not visible now so I do not want to write a new boot sector..

riclad

YOU could try use fat boot sector rebuild,
then use list,

if it works ,
write boot sector.
rebuild bs

I find it interesting,
i had 2 sd disks ,micro sd,
both would show up,
in my computer,
as DO you wish to format this drive.
i recovered all the data i wanted using recuva.

royster999

Errors now when I try to rebuild Boot Sector Recovery:

Disk /dev/sdb - 1000 GB / 931 GiB - CHS 121601 255 63
     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors
 1 P FAT32 LBA                0   1  1 121599 254 63 1953503937 [Elements]

Boot sector
fat32_boot_sector: Can't read boot sector.
Bad

Backup boot sector
fat32_boot_sector: Can't read backup boot sector.
Bad

Sectors are identical.

A valid FAT Boot sector must be present in order to access
any data; even if the partition is not bootable.



>[  Quit  ]  [Rebuild BS]  [  Dump  ]
                            Return to Advanced menu

Will try recuva program.

riclad

Try recuva,

Use advanced mode scan first.

i had a laptop that crashed ,long story short, I had 2 16gig cards nfts format,sdmicro cards.
IF it crashed when sdcard was connected ,card would show up as unformatted drive,
When i rebooted the laptop.

showed up as ,drive 16gig, not formatted in my computer.
I knew the data files where there.

i used recuva to get 90 per cent of files back.

I used deep scan .
Also search for music ,or avi , ie use search filter mode.
ITS very easy to use ,
Files that are marked ,low quality will probably be unrecoverable using recuva.
http://www.piriform.com/docs/recuva/using-recuva/wizard-mode/the-deep-scan-option

Some files about 50 files, showed up as 1.mp3, 2,mp3 etc ,3.mp3
or 1.avi , 2,avi ,
but they played fine ,and i could rename them after i recovered them.

First i used deep scan to recover mp3s,
than another scan to recover ebooks .or pdf files.

http://www.piriform.com/docs/recuva/using-recuva/wizard-mode/specifying-file-types

MY advice start recuva in advanced mode,
specify music or picture files to search for .


A deep scan can only recover files, not file names. Files found during a deep scan appear in the list view as [<number>].<extension>. For example: [00001].jpg
A deep scan can only identify the following file types:


NOTE a deep scan
will recover files but not the full filenames ,
eg mp3 1, mp3 3 .mp3. 4 etc




First run recuva in advanced mode.to run Recuva in Advanced mode:
1. Start Recuva. If the Wizard appears, click Do not show this Wizard on startup, and then click Cancel. Restart Recuva.
2. Specify the drives, file types, and optionally the file names you want Recuva to search for.


There,s more chance of recovering files with full filenames this way.

IF all else fails try deep scan mode.

royster999

The hard drive is not showing in my computer now.
In event viewer there says to be a controller error. When I use analyse disk in Testdisk, it shows the hard as now having no partition but 2TB! It should only be 1TB:

Disk /dev/sdb - 2199 GB / 2047 GiB - 4294967295 sectors
Current partition structure:
     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors


Partition: Read error

The drive is not showing in Recuva so I cannot do anything with that.

Think I will create new partition with TestDisk. Looks like my data got lost with Rebuild BS.

riclad

TRY control panel, administration, storage, drives , partition s,
see what is says there .

I,VE never used testdisk,
used recuva, utimate boot disk etc

also photorec, made by same company as testdisk.

when I used recuva ,,
i formatted the drives,in ntfs file format
eg this rebuilt the boot sectors i presume ,gave me acess to my data .

Then used recuva deep scan to recover the files i wanted.



i,m NOT saying format the drive ,in your case.

recuva showed me all my files ,even files deleted 6 months ago,
AFTER i formatted the drives.

it worked twice for me .

I Think your drive is using fat32 file format.

riclad

http://www.pcinspector.de/?language=1

Here are some of the new features in PC INSPECTOR™ File Recovery 4.x:

Finds partitions automatically, even if the boot sector or FAT has been erased or damaged

Recovers files with the original time and date stamp

it gets good reviews ,,its a free download.

royster999

Its not recognising the disk to even begin searching.
See attached..

yoyo

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