HDD does not show up in My Computer

Okay, skip the SMART tests. Does the bad disk show when you do the fdisk -l command?

James

I've typed in the fdisk -l command only for it to come up with another command starting with root@PartedMagic:~#

for example:

root@PartedMagic;~# fdisk -l
root@partedMagic;~#

In other words, nothing happens.

I'm currently carrying out a testdisk, which is taking forever!!!

Hi

I do this on several forums and with data recovery it is real hard to maintain situational awareness without taking things in small steps. Ask a question, get an answer, decide on the next step, get a result, etc... It's very easy for me to make a mistake if I don't have a clear picture of what is going on.

I would have tried to get more info on the health of that drive before jumping into TestDisk but if you have a plan of your own, that's cool I really don't mind. I just can't help you as effectively.

James

James,
I fully understand but everything i was trying i was hitting a brickwall, i don't even know what testdisk is. I only done it because its the only thing that worked at the time.

Unfortunately due to time differences i'm only managing to complete one or two steps a day.

Tell me what to do now.

Like i said i really appreciate the help you are giving me.

Apologies, it's 1240am now and i have work at 5am. Will continue tomorrow. Thanks again

No problem, I just wanted to make that clear. It can be very stressful and difficult to do the things that I ask so clarity is of the utmost importance.

Let's me talk about your drive some so you understand what we are doing.
It appears to be an unstable connection issue of some sort. It likes to do a few things and then it's gone. There are a dozen different things that could be causing this but right now we should focus on recovering important data from it as quickly and effectively as possible.
When this happens, I often find that we can get more done with the drive before it disconnects by working in Linux(PartedMagic in our case) than in Windows (which has a lot more going on in the background with the drive).
I'd like to see the partition structure of that drive and then go straight for grabbing the important data off of it.

Questions I need answered
Did you run TestDisk in PartedMagic or in Windows?
What was the result of TestDisk, if any?

If you are done with TestDisk and ready to move on, please try this.
Completely shutdown the computer
Turn it on and boot into PartedMagic
Follow my steps from above for running fdisk -l
Let me know the results. Hopefully, it will give us some data this time.

I'm working on several client's machines here tonight so I'll be around monitoring this forum for quite awhile still :)

James

Hi James,

Testdisk was 4% completed after 15 hours so i cancelled it and closed down the computer for a reboot, as requested.

I then carried out the next step you mentioned - (Computer screen near START Icon).
Not sure if you can see from the picture but i typed in fdisk -l as described only to have the same message line. I Can't seem to get the information you requested, AM I DOING SOMETHING WRONG?

(Parted -l) info is in the picture.

I ran Testdisk in Parted magic and when i cancelled it, nothing happened, i didn't even get a log.

I have another Hard drive in place that i can transfer all the data to. To be quite honest, i'm only trying to save about 60gb, will i be required to save the whole drive or can i select. Assuming this works and it isn't completely DEAD.

Many thanks again.