3 TB Hard-Drive: Filesystem Unknown (RAW) after bad disconnection

Normally MFT and MFT mirror should not touch the data area.They will grow only on free space. So hope it is so in this case.

I was surprised since I expected the MFT to be corrupted and not MFT Mirror. Whatever, TestDisk could not list your files earlier citing file system corruption. After the MFT mirror was rectified it lists the files. 3TB drives have always posed difficulties in data recovery. As a matter of fact only recently we have started getting these kind of problems and especially those drives which got wrecked in incompatible docks/enclosures. So for most part we are also groping in the dark and devise some means based on our analysis of the situation. There are no precedents. Each case is different. Sometimes our analysis can go wrong since there are many unknown variables.

You can now copy those folders on your 4 TB drive and check whether all is well.

You have to start TestDisk with both your 3TB data drive and 4 TB destination drive connected. How to copy I had already given this link My external hard drive suddenly became unllocated:. (Do not format your 3TB drive now)
( You can copy one folder at a time and check how it went and whether you have got everything in it)

Let us know how it all went.

Alright, thank you Jumanji.
I'll start the copy process and report when it's done (and how it went) or, god forbid!, should I encounter an issue along the way...

(BTW, I could indeed read the files using the "List" option, but I still cannot list them using the shift+P option you told me before -- it still displays the same error message of corrupted filesystem, etc. Is it normal?)

What are you doing? In your post #40, your folders/files are listed. Repeat the same procedure to list the files (that is [Advanced] File system utils Enter.) Once you are there and the folders are listed, with the up/down arrow highlight the folder, press Shift+: to select the folder and press C ( lowercase C) to copy. (In this case there is no Shift+P)

jumanji said:

What are you doing? In your post #40, your folders/files are listed. Repeat the same procedure to list the files (that is [Advanced] File system utils Enter.) Once you are there and the folders are listed, with the up/down arrow highlight the folder, press Shift+: to select the folder and press C ( lowercase C) to copy. (In this case there is no Shift+P)

I understand (copy process is underway BTW and successful so far with about 200 files copied and 0 fail).

I was pointing out that the first attempt to list the files you suggested was not the same:

On post #34:

So you will press Shift+P that is capital P to list the files.

If the files are listed thank heavens and copy those to your destination drive.

This procedure still fails to list the files and report a corrupt filesys, contrary to the procedure currently used (which as I mentioned, is working perfectly so far).

(So I was only curious about why the first procedure still fails and report an error, but that's nothing important -- and don't worry, I'm still following your every recommandation and explanation to the letter so there is no mix-up I can assure you :))

Yep, As I told you we don't understand many things.:) especially with GPT initialised drives.

What we know once it is listed , copy it as per the screen instructions in that screen.

I am still keeping my fingers crossed, till you say all copied files are ok and readable as before. . That is why I wanted you to select just one folder and copy. We should know the results faster.

If everything goes on well then you can select all folders and copy all or go with selecting one by one.

Hello again Jumanji!

Apologies for leaving this thread for so long and coming back like this after 2 and a half months... As is usual, life got in the way and I had to focus on many many things other than my hard-drive problem. I hope you won't find it too much of a hassle to review my problem once again after this long (and won't find me too presumptuous for expecting you to!). I don't know whether rereading the first post would suffice to get all the details of my issue back to memory (no doubt you have reviewed dozen others since our last exchange and everything about mine must now be a blur at best).
So, here is a very brief account of what happened to me beyond the 1st post:

My drive is a 3TB one, the partition of which we tried to copy on another brand new 4TB. Under your guidance, we finally established that MiniTool, although able to browse the filesystem of the faulty 3TB drive, was unable to successfully make a copy of the partition itself (process hanged before complete or sth). So we moved on to TestDisk for the task.
I was able to make this copy with TestDisk (took DAYS, leaving the computer working non-stop day and night) and that is where we left things last time (see our last few posts above).

At first, things seemed fine to me, but alas! I noticed soon after that the copy was actually far from perfect:
there are missing files (although I cannot say how many of course, but some folders are left empty which I am 100% sure weren't previously), and many (although not all) files are corrupted (huge majority of the files stored are 7zip or RAR archives so this is easy to verify. While some archives open correctly, many many others can't open at all and report as corrupted by WinRAR/7zip).

I should add that, apart from the MFT mirror copy operation performed under TestDisk (see posts#40-41), the faulty 3TB drive hasn't been altered in any way since the original issue occurred.
Now, I don't know if I leave you with nearly enough information about the situation to answer this, but I'll risk asking anyway: is there anything more we can attempt from here? And seeing that the partition copy performed by TestDisk gives very mitigated results (missing & corrupt files), is there still ANY chance anyway in your opinion that data on the original disk might be in better shape and recoverable?

(Let me thank you in advance for your time reviewing and answering this, and once again if the long time past since I last now makes it too hard to get a proper image of the situation as we left it, don't hesitate to tell me and I'll make sure to write you a proper account of things).

I shall come back when I get sometime to go through this whole thread and get a grip of what has been done. This may take sometime since I shall be busy with lots of pending personal work throughout this month.

There's no rush and I'm only too grateful you take of your time to help me further, no matter in what delay (needless to say!).

In any case, being subcribed to this thread, I believe I'll be warned by email whenever you come post here.
Thanks again!