Solved How to recover ntfs partition

[Gerrit]

Hi everyone,

I have an external drive, size 1TB with a ntfs partition on it. Some linux tools told me, that the size of the drive is 2TB. I used to GParted to resize it. Everything looked fine and the drive was still accessible. After writing something on the drive, the drive became inaccessible both under Ubuntu and Windows 7.

I tried to rewrite the MBR table with fdisk to have it set back to 1TB, but I dont really know, what sector size would be correct.

I wanted to use chkdsk to repair the drive, but unfortunately the drive is recognized as a RAW drive.

Can someone help me to rewrite the MBR table with fdisk or suggest a tool which can repair the MBR?


Some output that may be helpful:

fdisk after I rewrote the MBR

$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sde

Disk /dev/sde: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x44fdfe06

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sde1              63  1953525166   976762552    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

parted output:

$ sudo parted /dev/sde unit s print
Model: WD 10EACS External (scsi)
Disk /dev/sde: 1953525168s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start  End          Size         Type     File system  Flags
 1      63s    1953525166s  1953525104s  primary

dmesg output when attaching the drive (in linux):

[ 7792.905572] usb 1-1.2: new high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci-pci
[ 7792.998930] usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=1100
[ 7792.998932] usb 1-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 7792.998934] usb 1-1.2: Product: My Book         
[ 7792.998935] usb 1-1.2: Manufacturer: Western Digital 
[ 7792.998936] usb 1-1.2: SerialNumber: 57442D574341534A30393431333733
[ 7792.999363] scsi7 : usb-storage 1-1.2:1.0
[ 7793.998087] scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access     WD       10EACS External  1.65 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[ 7793.999008] sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0
[ 7794.001221] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] 1953525168 512-byte logical blocks: (1.00 TB/931 GiB)
[ 7794.002257] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
[ 7794.002262] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 21 00 00 00
[ 7794.003385] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] No Caching mode page found
[ 7794.003388] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 7794.006132] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] No Caching mode page found
[ 7794.006136] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 7794.023054]  sde: sde1
[ 7794.026132] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] No Caching mode page found
[ 7794.026137] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 7794.026141] sd 7:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI disk

 

[Golden]

jumanji is a whizz at this......I'll make him aware of this. Look for his reply.

 

[Kaktussoft]

I tried to rewrite the MBR table

MBR consists of:

• disk signature
• partition table
• master boot code (to boot from partition). Small piece of bootstapr code.

Why rewrite MBR and which part of it? Rewrite with zeros's?

 

[Gerrit]

I tried to rewrite the MBR table

MBR consists of:

• disk signature
• partition table
• master boot code (to boot from partition). Small piece of bootstapr code.

Why rewrite MBR and which part of it? Rewrite with zeros's?

Rewrite the partition table, so the information is correct according to the actual size of the hard drive. And because I was so stupid to belive the testdisk and fdisk, that the hard drive is 2TB big although I bought it as a 1TB drive and thus resized it with GParted.

And because there is data on it, that I havent backed up.

 

[Kaktussoft]

fdisk -land gparted
dispaly that it's a 1TB disk. Only 1 partition on disk, starting at sector 63 (quite normal in windows). ID=7 so NTFS.

Download and burn partition wizard. Free download Magic Partition Manager Software, partition magic alternative, free partition magic, partition magic Windows 7 and server partition software - Partition Wizard Online . Boot from it. Does it see the partition, is it NTFS, PRIMARY?
Post results please. Most preferable with camshots

 

[Kaktussoft]

I tried to rewrite the MBR table

MBR consists of:

• disk signature
• partition table
• master boot code (to boot from partition). Small piece of bootstapr code.

Why rewrite MBR and which part of it? Rewrite with zeros's?

Rewrite the partition table, so the information is correct according to the actual size of the hard drive. And because I was so stupid to belive the testdisk and fdisk, that the hard drive is 2TB big although I bought it as a 1TB drive and thus resized it with GParted.

And because there is data on it, that I havent backed up.

You are sure you messed up the MBR only (first 512bytes of disk)?

 

[Gerrit]

fdisk -land gparted
dispaly that it's a 1TB disk. Only 1 partition on disk, starting at sector 63 (quite normal in windows). ID=7 so NTFS.

They did before I resized and afterwards rewrote the MBR partition table with fdisk.

You are sure you messed up the MBR only (first 512bytes of disk)?

Not completely, but I hope not.


Will test partition wizard

Picture of partition wizard overview:

 

[Kaktussoft]

disksignature overwritten.... no problem.
master boot code overwritten... no problem.
You did override the partition table as well. Don't know what you did modify.

Anyway it's sector 0 of disk. tell me what Partition Wizard says.

Partition Wizard: How to perform lost partition recovery and deleted partition recovery under Windows? Partition Recovery Help. Do "full disk" ->quick scan. Does it find a large partition starting at sector 63? You can recover it. Make it PRIMARY using Partition Wizard as well. Since it was the only partition on that disk, mark it ACTIVE as well

 

[Gerrit]

disksignature overwritten.... no problem.
master boot code overwritten... no problem.
You did override the partition table as well. Don't know what you did modify.

Modified the sector size.

Anyway it's sector 0 of disk. tell me what Partition Wizard says.

Partition Wizard: How to perform lost partition recovery and deleted partition recovery under Windows? Partition Recovery Help. Do "full disk" ->quick scan. Does it find a large partition starting at sector 63? You can recover it. Make it PRIMARY using Partition Wizard as well. Since it was the only partition on that disk, mark it ACTIVE as well

Partition wizard finds the partition. But I'm unsure if the "Used Size" is a problem:

 

[Kaktussoft]

Status: Existing. Hmmmmm it is already there, or did you already recover. What does the main screen display after you start PW?

 

[Kaktussoft]

btw filetype NTFS, start sector 63, end sector 1953525166 size 931.51GB all looks fine to me.
The used size isn't in the partition table! Partition Wizard knows how NTFS works and read the structures and tells you how much space is used. It's a negative number so.... it's a PW summary overflow, or the filesystem is corrupt. Not a partition problem!!

win7 checkdisk will fix that, or report more details about the problem.

 

[Gerrit]

I didnt recover anything yet. Only started the quick scan and that is what you see in my last post. The start screen is looking like in the following picture.

Cant run checkdisk on it, because windows only sees it as a RAW drive. If I click on the partition in the quick scan result I can show all my files. So maybe PW can fix it.

 

[Kaktussoft]

PW sees all fine. Only it computes the used space wrong. So computes the used space wrong as well. Do you know the real used space (or free space) approximately?

Is it possible to shrink the partition? Shrink partition with partition magic wizard.
How to shrink Windows partition without damaging data?

 

[Gerrit]

PW sees all fine. Only it computes the used space wrong. So computes the used space wrong as well. Do you know the real used space (or free space) approximately?

Approximately 350GB, I can watch the complete file structure in the partition explorer.

Is it possible to shrink the partition? Shrink partition with partition magic wizard.
How to shrink Windows partition without damaging data?

Just tried, Everything worked fine until it copied the data. At 16% it gave a I/O error.

 

[Kaktussoft]

PW sees all fine. Only it computes the used space wrong. So computes the used space wrong as well. Do you know the real used space (or free space) approximately?

Approximately 350GB, I can watch the complete file structure in the partition explorer.

Is it possible to shrink the partition? Shrink partition with partition magic wizard.
How to shrink Windows partition without damaging data?

Just tried, Everything worked fine until it copied the data. At 16% it gave a I/O error.

Because drive is faulty? Because.... I don't know. You can still see files? Reboot to PW again. What is state of the faulty partition now?

 

[Kaktussoft]

To prove it's not a hardware problem How to perform disk surface test with partition manager software - Partition Wizard?

 

[Gerrit]

The state hasnt changed, still negative unused space.

Can do a disk surface test, but that will take 9 hours and more, so I'll probably run that tonight and post the result tomorrow

 

[Kaktussoft]

The state hasnt changed, still negative unused space.

Can do a disk surface test, but that will take 9 hours and more, so I'll probably run that tonight and post the result tomorrow

It's still same size?

Can linux successfully mount the ntfs-partition? What kind of files are on the disk anyway?

 

[jumanji]

. .......You can still see files? Reboot to PW again. What is state of the faulty partition now?

Yep, I would also be interested in knowing it.

Please rerun Partition Recovery Wizard, Quick Scan and if it stays partition still exists and partition explorer shows the files, blindly go ahead and rewrite the partition table. Since you will only be writing to sector 0, you are not doing anything to the data.( However if it I has already been corrupted due to your dabbling with Linux/fdisk,Changing sector size, attempting to shrink partitions etc., etc., and other write operations, data integrity cannot be guaranteed. Anyway let us make a brave attempt to retrieve whatever possible)

Please post screenshots of 1.how the drive looks in Partition Wizard, 2. The result after running the quick scan 3. How the files show up in the partition explorer and finally how your drive looks like after rewriting the partition table.

For all the screenshots please use the Windows Snipping Tool and upload the snap. ( Do not use third party sites)

For more help on how to go about with Partition Recovery Wizard, proceed to the topic Recovery with Partition Wizard: SanDisk Cruzer Blade 16GB ( in your case it will be your external hard drive) in Recover a flash drive turned RAW – Partition Wizard and TestDisk.

Since it is already bedtime for me, I may return only after another 10 hours. So Kaktussoft may continue if he has better ideas, short of any writing operations.

 

[Gerrit]

The partition explorer displays the files similar to the windows explorer. Rewriting the MBR Table dont seem to help.

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