Best way to sort out a corrupted partition table?

So fantastic. All data recovered.

Glad to hear that :).

At first I thought the Testdisk had got stuck because it would pull off a whole load of files and then kind of stop. The recovered file size would slowly, slowly increase. I kept restarted Testdisk and moved onto the following files.

It could be due to the bad sectors. If portion of any file is stored on the defective area, not only Testdisk but any data recovery software will have trouble reading them. So i assume not only the USB-SATA bridge is faulty, but also the disk has read errors as reported by "HD Sentinel".

In the future, make sure to keep a backup copy of all your important data on a second hard drive or some cloud storage.

firehorseuk said:

OK,

Testdisk isn't only good for reading 4096 byte sectors, it is also great for data recovery.

Data recovery was a bit tedious as the drive kept disconnecting at random intervals. Something 20 mins, sometimes 20 hours. But I just kept going from the last time it stopped.

At first I thought the Testdisk had got stuck because it would pull off a whole load of files and then kind of stop. The recovered file size would slowly, slowly increase. I kept restarted Testdisk and moved onto the following files.

I then went back to all the files that Testdisk had a problem with, left Testdisk running on them ... and it eventually read the data and recovered the file. So the only thing I can think of is that Testdisk just kept trying different algorithms to read the data off the disk or it just kept trying.

So fantastic. All data recovered.

Awesome program.

Great to see you succeeded :)

I have similar problem.

My Touro 500GB in Win7 management shows that it has only raw partition :/, and under Linux GParted says: "NTFS is inconsistent. Run chkdsk /f on Windows and then reboot it TWICE!"

I tried it and Win7 says that I do not have enough high rank as a user :?
I used Testdisk under Linux and it says that my disk, Touro has "Read error at 400/10/1 (lba=6426630)"

I hope geometry is good set for this disk: 60801 255 63, cause... I can not get to any files by now.

Do you have useful idea :)?

Thank you :)!

Hi dtomas,

I had a Stardock disk dock. I pulled my disk out from its enclosure and put it into the disk dock to get proper readings. I think the Touro electronics had become faulty so that's why the disk became faulty.

I would pull your disk out of its enclosure and either put it into a disk dock or attach it directly to the computer. Then use Testdisk and set the geometry to 4096.

Keep reading the testdisk help pages.

Yes... it seems to be good way to go.
On tom'shardware site says similar: enclosure has one setting (lba), and disk has another so it is needed to get disk out from enclosure and connect it directly to computer...

But , enclosure is really nice closed and for sure plastic is going to break apart, and warranty is going to end in that very moment

So... now it's first to figure it out: are those files more important then new drive.
Off course, maybe this issue isn't covered by warranty at all (that wouldn't surprise me)

First I'll search are there any gentle opening ways

well...
I am trying and trying but without success :/

it seems testdisk can read from, but can not write to disk.
I tried with other disk in same enclosure, an directly connected to computer (without enclosure) but no good results.

Testdisk can detect disk, and examine all cylinders (founding error at cylinder 400) but that's all :/

Hi,

I would use Testdisk to pull all the data off the disk, that's what I used it for. Once I set the geometry to 4096, Testdisk was then able to read the disk and I could pull off all the data onto another working disk. Then, if you still want to use the faulty disk afterwards, you can reformat the disk and copy the data back onto it using Windows Explorer.

You are completely right!

But... it was very difficult to reach that stage.

First, after at least 30 attempts, testdisk succeeded to write geometry data to HDD (in this case: 60801/255/63/512).
Earlier it just reports: write error, and after I reconnect HDD to computer again there was nonsense digits in geometry section.

So, you can imagine my surprise and happiness when (after xx attempts) there was notice: data successfully written, you must reboot...

After reboot there was on the very beginning of testdisk session listed partition, and finally I was able to choose "make image.dd" from advanced menu :)

It took almost 2 days for transit 500GB data to another disk.
Right now, PhotoRec is successfully extracting files from .dd file

........

Original disk has serious hardware problem cause, it can not be formated, Win7 can not initiate it by putting MBR (write protected disk raport) and disk space is showed as unalocated or similar (not raw)...

Disk for sure is not going to be used anymore.
Now I just hope manufacturer is going to fulfil warranty obligations.

Thank you so much for helping me!!!

Best regards!

Hi dtomas,

I'm glad I managed to encourage to persist with testdisk and you managed to get your data back.

I had a 2TB disk, but testdisk was able to read the partition successfully when the geometry was set to match the disk. I didn't have to make an image (I didn't know testdisk could do that), I just selected the directories and copied them one by one across. It took about a week (some files would copy across immediately, others could take overnight - so it wasn't related to size), but all the data was recovered.

Best regards

Interesting...

Cause, my case was different.

I wasn't able to see directories and files at all in Testdisk!
No way.

I was happy to finally see partition recognized by Testdisk and (no files under list) I made image.dd immediately. Then again, in the image.dd file, Testdisk found nothing, but in the same image PhotoRec found Everything .

.

As I didn't succeeded to set geometry at all (any numbers), I tried to put numbers written to HDD label but those numbers also wasn't appropriate.

So, to make long story short: Testdisk was used to establish partition and to make an image.dd file, but PhotoRec was the tool to pick up files from that file.

Great software.