Regain a lost drive using Test Disk - An Illustrated Guide

Doh! I have since shut the program down - I would have to go through the 5 hour scan again. But by partition recover module - that's what I ran first. I left and came back (said it would take an hour). When I had returned, it was going through the deep scan and finding all that huge list of partitions. The only other partition that had the correct size (size of the drive) was Partition 7, which said RAW. When I went to look at the files, there was something there, but they were all in folders classified by their file extension and none of the files were properly named (just excel 1, excel 2, etc., etc.).

I should add that this drive was markted as a Seagate Slim MAC back up drive, but I never had a MAC. I took it out of the box and immediately plugged it into my Windows machine. The drive has been swapped around a few windows machines several times.

OH WAIT! I lied - I initially put this on a Windows machine to backup my video recordings. I took the drive to the library to use the MAC they have there (super powered) for Final Cut Pro (to edit some YouTube videos). So, this has been used on a MAC before, but I was interchanging this drive between Windows and that MAC no problem. Most recently, swapped the drive between only Windows machines . . . again, no problem. Just all of the sudden it wouldn't mount at the new, clean PC install (on several PCs). That's when I did the stupid as described in OP (used DiskPart Clean).

Not sure if any of that info helps.

SIW2 said:

It is free for windows, which means ntfs or fat file systems.

There is ( or was) a different program for mac, which is hfs+

It must think it is an hfs+ partition.

What does the partition recovery module say?

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Any chance you might have other tricks up your sleeve for restoring HFS+ partition from a Windows machine (seeing I was using it most strictly from a Windows machine)?

Thanks again for your help!

SIW2 said:

It is free for windows, which means ntfs or fat file systems.

There is ( or was) a different program for mac, which is hfs+

It must think it is an hfs+ partition.

What does the partition recovery module say?

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YAAAAY! I figured it out!

So, finding out it was formatted HFS+, I used TestDisk to Analyze via Apple partition.

TestDisk did find the main partition (where all my files are located) and gave me the exact starting sector and ending sector.

TestDisk does not rewrite HFS+ type partitions, so the program gave the suggestion to use "parted" command via a Linux environment.

I found GParted (thinking this was the same as "parted" - I'm a Linux know-nothing) and in poking around and researching more, I discovered that "parted" is a command in the Linux system.

Long story short, I used the "rescue" command in the "parted" command/program and discovered if you put an "s" at the end of each start and end number, that means sectors (instead of the default megabytes).

Rescue found the partition and recreated it to the drive for me.

Now, the drive still won't mount on Windows, so I discovered HFSExplorer--an open source, free program for Windows--that allows my Windows machine to discover the file structure in an HFS partition.

As I type, I am running an extraction of the entire HFS partition from the restored drive partition to another external drive.

3.84 GB completed out of 527.56 GB - but I see the files being written to the new, extracted location in real time.

WHOOOPIE! A (so far) successful drive recovery AND at NO COST out of pocket.

Thanks for trying to help - it did allow me to discover the partition type, so quite helpful indeed - thank you!

(And of course, I'll be sure to reformat the original drive in question to the proper Windows accepted format so I can continue to use as my backup and media storage!)

docdocdoc said:

Doh! I have since shut the program down - I would have to go through the 5 hour scan again. But by partition recover module - that's what I ran first. I left and came back (said it would take an hour). When I had returned, it was going through the deep scan and finding all that huge list of partitions. The only other partition that had the correct size (size of the drive) was Partition 7, which said RAW. When I went to look at the files, there was something there, but they were all in folders classified by their file extension and none of the files were properly named (just excel 1, excel 2, etc., etc.).

I should add that this drive was markted as a Seagate Slim MAC back up drive, but I never had a MAC. I took it out of the box and immediately plugged it into my Windows machine. The drive has been swapped around a few windows machines several times.

OH WAIT! I lied - I initially put this on a Windows machine to backup my video recordings. I took the drive to the library to use the MAC they have there (super powered) for Final Cut Pro (to edit some YouTube videos). So, this has been used on a MAC before, but I was interchanging this drive between Windows and that MAC no problem. Most recently, swapped the drive between only Windows machines . . . again, no problem. Just all of the sudden it wouldn't mount at the new, clean PC install (on several PCs). That's when I did the stupid as described in OP (used DiskPart Clean).

Not sure if any of that info helps.



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Any chance you might have other tricks up your sleeve for restoring HFS+ partition from a Windows machine (seeing I was using it most strictly from a Windows machine)?

Thanks again for your help!

I have an old Seagate 3tb expansion drive where the enclosure died - the disk is fine - except that I cannot access the files after putting it into a HDD dock.

I have followed this guide until step 10 where I get this message:


I have checked the disk and I don't see any jumpers on it.

Any help is much appreciated!

@jumanji perhaps you have some insights here that can help me?

@hhunden

Sorry, I didn't log into Sevenforums for many days and just saw your post now on seeing the notification.

Please post a screenshot of Windows Disk Management with only your faulty drive in the dock plugged in.

Make sure you follow the guidelines here. Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

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OK @hhunden,

I see you are working on it.

I was awake because I wanted to fix up an appointment with my Wellness Center for Thursday which I thought will open after midnight. It is not open yet. May be it will open by 0600 hrs. So I shall wind up for now and go to sleep..

You can also go to sleep.

We shall continue tomorrow.

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@hhunden

This morning I did not see the screenshot posted. Please make the following modification before taking the screenshot of Windows Disk Management.

Click on View in the top menu bar> Top > Click on Disk List. This will show the Partition Style of the disks.. Take a screenshot and post.

Sample screenshot:



Also answer the following questions,

1. Is your system running Windows 10 Enterprise? Is it a OEM PC or self-assembled one? ( You could have as well started a new thread in Ten Forums.)

2. Were you able to access and read the external disk before on Windows 10 ? When was the last time you were able to access the disk and see its contents on Windows 10??

3. How old is your Seagate 3TB External ?- Year of purchase if you remember.

4. How did you determine that the enclosure has gone bad?

I suspect that your Seagate 3TB external is an MBR initialised disk as opposed to GPT.. If that is confirmed by your screenshot, Test Disk has to be used in a different way to recover the data..

Hi @jumanji

Thank you very much for getting back to me. Yes I probably should have started a new thread. Sorry for that.

I hope I can answer you questions correct. Here goes:

1) Yes it is running Windows 10 Enterprise. It is an OEM Lenovo laptop, however this could be on any of my computers (OEM or selfbuild).
2) It has been a long time since I had a computer running OS older than Windows 10 and I have had no problems using the external USB disk on Windows 10.
3) I can't remember but I would say 10+ years ago.
4) I have not been using it for half a year or so, I need some of the files I have backed up on it. It just didn't power on. Perhaps the power supply died, cord broken? Before thinking twice I opened up the enclosure and took out the disk as I had the other dock and just figured I could read the disk that way - silly me :)

And for the screenshot and GPT vs MBR is seems like you are correct - disk 2:

OK.

Take your own time. Nothing to be done in a hurry.

Please read this thread 3 TB WD External Hard Drive NOT Working [ RAW ] Solved - Windows 10 Forums

Follow the TestDisk procedure outlined in my post #26 therein 3 TB WD External Hard Drive NOT Working [ RAW ] Solved - Page 3 - Windows 10 Forums

You will essentially be changing the sector size to 4096 in TestDisk and asking it to read the data as coming from a 4096 byte/sector size.

That change does not write anything to the disk in question and is valid for that TestDisk session only.

It is most preferable to connect the 3TB Seagate disk directly to the motherboard SATA port, if you can do it, rather than through a dock.

Can you do it?

Note: In the thread I had referred to above, The OP Paul Black could see his full 3TB disk in WDM. In your case it shows only as a 746.52 GB disk. This can happen if your dock also is an "ancient" one which cannot handle a more than 2TB disk.

If you can do an internal connection, please do it and post a screenshot of Windows Disk Management.

If you cannot do it, go ahead with the disk in the dock and let us see what happens. ( As I said the TestDisk Procedure does not write anything to the disk. So nothing will happen to your data in it)

As and if you proceed with the disk in the dock, if you get a different screen than what is shown in that thread ,then take a screenshot and quit TestDisk.

Post the screenshot and wait for further instructions.

Please note that TestDisk has to be run as administrator and do not deviate from the procedure outlined.

Right now I don't have the option to attach the disk directly to a motherboard (I will figure a way if using the dock doesn't work).
I have started the analyse (screen 8) and will get back to you once it is done.
Thank you again for your help so far @jumanji.



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@jumanji, here is the result:

Is there any way around getting the disk attached to a motherboard (or newer dock that supports larger disk)?

hhunden said:

Right now I don't have the option to attach the disk directly to a motherboard (I will figure a way if using the dock doesn't work).
I have started the analyse (screen 8) and will get back to you once it is done.
Thank you again for your help so far @jumanji.



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@jumanji, here is the result:

Is there any way around getting the disk attached to a motherboard (or newer dock that supports larger disk)?

No way ( as far as I can see - my limitation. ). If you are unable to get to Screen 10 showing the full capacity and the single partition/volume ( assuming your disk had only one single volume) as in my referred thread/ post in Ten Forums, your best option will be to try a direct connection to the motherboard. Option 2 will be to try it in a new branded enclosure. (Most current branded enclosures can handle large capacity drives. Check their specs)