4TB drive moved from USB enclosure have RAW & Unpartitioned space?

paracaps · 17 Feb 2016

I'm stressing out that I have potentially lost over 3.5TB worth of data.

I've been using the Seagate Desktop 4TB external drive for the past few years without any issues besides the occasional disconnection from the USB cable and dock as it was always been a little flimsy.

Recently my USB connection was getting worse and worse to a point where it kept disconnecting constantly. I tried changing cables but that didn't help.

It eventually stopped working altogether so I took it out of the enclosure and connected it internally to my PC.

Unfortunately, I was unable to access my data. I would have one partition in RAW which has allocated the letter G and the other two unallocated.

I have since bought a USB 3.0 docking station by Unitek thinking it my rectify the issue. According to these forum's the motherboard is exposing the drive in 512e sectors instead of 4KB LBAs

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/29...titioned-space

Unfortunately, I'm in the same boat with the RAW + 2 unallocated drives and have no idea how to restore my data and if my drive is repairable.

According to Seatools by Seagate my HDD is fine.

I have tried using EaseUS Data Recovery and it seems to recover some of the files but it scattered everywhere without directories and filenames with many of the video files being wrong in size.

Would Testdisk potentially recover the partition table?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

jumanji · 17 Feb 2016

You are absolutely right. The older larger than 2TB external HDDs were advance formatted MBR HDDs with 4096bytes logical sector size. The drive translation circuitry in the enclosure converts the 4096bytes per sector data into conventional 512 bytes /sector data and presents it to the OS. I am assuming you had never formatted that external drive as a GPT drive.

The Tomshardware link you had given only returns "404 Page not found" on my IE11.

Now if you haven't damaged the electronics in the external enclosure, you may put the HDD back into the enclosure and plug it into another working PC and see whether you can see all the data as originally seen.

As a matter of fact you should have tried this even before taking out the drive from its enclosure.

Was the screenshot taken with the problem HDD connected as an internal HDD or in the dock you have bought?

Can you upload a new screenshot with the HDD connected as an internal HDD to sevenforum servers?

Windows Disk Management: Strictly follow the instructions here to present an untruncated screenshot with all information Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

Upload screenshots:Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums

If you want to try TestDisk you can of course ask TestDisk to read the drive as a 4096bytes/per sector drive and show you the data.

Please see my post here in eight forums. Solved Win 8.1 x64 and raw file system on external USB drive

In fact you can read the whole thread. While I was instructing him on how to change the sector size to 4096 bytes in TestDisk, the OP there put it inside his new dock and connected to Windows 8.1 PC and straightaway he could read all the data without using TestDisk. Perhaps you can take a cue from this, put your HDD inside the new dock, connect it to a Windows 8.1 PC and check. :)

So I have given you all the three ideas.

1. Back into the same enclosure, and try on another working Windows 7 PC ( since you have cast doubts on your PC's USB ports)

2. Change sector size to 4096 bytes in TestDisk and try to read the HDD connected as an internal HDD on your PC. The change you made in Test Disk holds only for that TestDisk session.

3. Put the HDD inside your new dock and plug it into a Windows 8.1 PC

whs · 17 Feb 2016

It becomes a real mess if people keep confusing drives and partitions. That is such a bad habit.

jumanji · 17 Feb 2016

HDD = Hard Disk Drive. No wonder Disk and Drive are used interchangeably. A formatted partition in an HDD by itself can become a drive. Then it is a drive in the disk. it is not a disk in the drive :)

A Windows Disk Management picture shows the disk with its drives. That is why we always ask for the WMD picture to differentiate between disk and drive to avoid confusion.:)

whs · 17 Feb 2016

I know that disk management is one of the sources of the confusion. For me a drive is something physical. The rest are partitions.

Layback Bear · 17 Feb 2016

I try to keep it simple.

Drives have numbers 0, 1, 2, ect

Partitions have letters C, D, E ect.

I don't care how many partitions one puts on a drive it still carries a drive number and the partitions still need letters.

The term Microsoft uses Disk Management does confuse things for some because what is looked at is how the drives and partitions are managed.

If their is only one partition (C) is on drive (0) it does not change drive (0) to drive (C). It is still drive (0) with partition (C).
That is why I often ask for a picture of Disk Management. To make sure the OP and I are on the same page.

RolandJS · 17 Feb 2016

I wonder if Acronis Disk Director or something equally powerful will help - dunno.
To avoid computer USBs from getting worn out, I've purchased some "extensions" that will take the blunt of in/out/in/out/in/out.; because the extensions remain in the computer, the devices "interface" with the extensions.

paracaps · 18 Feb 2016

jumanji said:

1. Back into the same enclosure, and try on another working Windows 7 PC ( since you have cast doubts on your PC's USB ports)

It was the actual dock station's Micro B connection that was playing up.

I have managed to get the drive working by applying pressure to the USB connection on the original Seagate dock using a portable hdd.

It' was holding by the thread but my data seems to be intact.
I have since managed to get all the data off the HDD

It appears that the original dock corrects the disc translation circuitry in the enclosure and converts the 4096bytes per sector data as mentioned

I have since connected it back to my desktop internally and have created a GPT table.

It's working exactly the way it should be.

Hopefully the information that has been posted on these forums will be useful to anyone else who ends up in my situation.

Thanks for all the help.
Greatly appreciated.

jumanji · 18 Feb 2016

I am afraid you are confusing with a dock and the enclosure.

What I understand is that you put the drive back into the original enclosure - - that is not a dock -, so that drive translation takes place, somehow managed the rickety connector to hold in place and got all your data backed up. Well done.

paracaps · 18 Feb 2016

The Seagate Desktop external HDD has a separate dock enclosure that it connects to.

It was that docks MicroB connection that was giving me trouble when connecting the cable.
I tried multiple cables but was definitely the dock's connection that was loose.

It seems very difficult finding replacements but in my situation I was fortunate enough to get a connection again by applying pressure and having a device to hold it firm.

Thanks again for all your help