Regain a lost drive using Test Disk - An Illustrated Guide

jumanji · Oct 6, 2011

PART 1:

More often, users report that a hard drive/partition is lost/not recognised and does not show up in My Computer though it can be seen in the Device Manager and Disk Management.

This situation typically arises when Windows is reinstalled or an external drive is moved to another PC.

It is mostly a corrupt/missing partition table which is responsible for this and can easily be fixed with the freeware Test Disk.

Newbies will find this illustrated guide helpful.

1.Download the latest version of Test Disk – Windows version from http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

2.Unzip the downloaded file to your C drive.

3.Open C:/testdisk-6.12 , right-click the testdisk_win.exe icon and Run as administrator. Click on Yes in the User Account Control Window. Use Keyboard’s arrow keys to navigate.

4.First Window: Select No Log, and press the ENTER key.

5.Second Window: Should show up all your drives including the lost drive. The capacities should be indicated correctly. Then you have life. Select the lost drive, Proceed, ENTER.

6.Third Window: Select partition type, Intel Intel/PC partition, ENTER.

7.Fourth Window: Select Analyze, ENTER.

8.Fifth Window: Should show all partition/s in the selected lost drive. Select Quick Search, ENTER.

9.Sixth Window: Confirm whether the partition was created by Vista/(Windows 7). Press Y if yes/not sure. N otherwise.

No screenshot here since I tried Test Disk for this guide on a Maxtor OneTouch II external drive with a valid partition table. You may get this sixth window when trying to fix a lost drive.

10.Seventh Window: Test Disk should indicate first partition of your lost drive as bootable and "Structure: OK". Press ENTER to continue.

11.Eighth Window: Select Write, ENTER.

12.Ninth window: Confirm write partition table by pressing Y .

13.Tenth Window: Asks you to reboot, Press ENTER.

14.Close Test Disk and reboot.

At some stage or other Test Disk may take a long time to scan, analyse and process all data necessary to rewrite the partition table. Be patient.

If one looks deeply into the screenshots, it will become evident that Test Disk can perform many other tasks like backing up the data in the lost drive, fixing a corrupt MBR etc.,

I understand that PhotoRec which is part of this program can recover photo and video files even from an accidentally formatted media. Keep this in mind and try should you face such a situation.

Users who actually tried this program to fix/recover may share their experience. We can learn from others’ experiences and help others.

Note: Most content of this thread already appear in another post elsewhere in this forum in response to a query. I have now put that in stand-alone thread with added screenshots so that it can be referenced and users can find it easily.

Corazon · Oct 6, 2011

Awesome guide. Well done

jumanji · Oct 7, 2011

Thanks, Corazon. You inspired me.

seavixen32 · Oct 7, 2011

Thanks for this, jumanji.

I've bookmarked it as an addition to my troubleshooting locker.

jumanji · Oct 9, 2011

PART 2:

The first part of this topic broadly outlined the steps involved in regaining an inaccessible drive with a corrupt/missing partition table.

In the event, the drive will be seen in the Disk Management without a drive letter and unallocated space.

To actually ascertain how good is Test Disk in regaining the hard drive access, I destroyed the partition table on my Maxtor external drive – using the same Test Disk – and went through the whole process.

( My external drive had two partitions, one containing the backup of D and E drives/partitions of my internal drive and the other the periodical system images of drive C. As a matter of abundant caution, I had copied all this data into another external drive, should something go wrong in this destructive trial and I am unable to regain the drive/data. I had also imaged the MBR and kept it. )

Here is my healthy external drive before the partition table was deleted:

In the fourth Window – Part 1, I selected Delete, Enter, which deletes the partition table.

My external drive is now inaccessible and shows in the Disk Management as below. Now this is the real-life situation one will find that will necessitate calling upon Test Disk.

With the drive inacceesible, I hit Analyse, Enter – fourth Window in Part 1. A window with “No Partition is bootable” message appears. ( This in fact replaces the earlier fifth window in Part 1)

Hit Quick Search, Enter and this sixth window (missing earlier in Part 1 with a healthy drive) appears.

Press Y and voila the seventh window showing both the missing partitions appears. This happened almost instantaneously.

( Selecting a partition and hitting P as also the List, Enter in any window will show the folders/files which can be copied to any other drive in the PC. Screen shot later in this post)

Yep, Test Disk has done its job. Go ahead with the rest of the steps in Part 1, and the partition table is restored.

The Maxtor drive is back in business. No sweat.

So go ahead and try Test Disk when suddenly your external drive becomes inaccessible.

More on Test Disk:

The fourth Window has the following tabs: Analyse, Advanced, Geometry, Options, MBR Code,Delete, Quit. We have already seen the Analyse in the fourth window – Part 1.

The Advanced Tab brings out the file System Utilities window.

Here one can select Type – for changing Partition Type, Boot – for Boot Sector Recovery, List – to list and copy files from the selected Partition, Undelete – to recover deleted files and Image Creation – for creating images of the partition. Boot, Enter brings another window with List, Rebuild BS, Repair MFT, and DUMP (dump boot sector and backup boot sector)

MBR Code facilitates writing a new Test Disk MBR code. Users are well-advised to read http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Menu_MBRCode on writing the Test Disk MBR as a last resort.

Apparently these would be used when the system becomes unbootable and one tries to fix the system hard drive and /or recover the files. In such a situation, however, one would run Test Disk from a live-CD. ( A list of liveCDs with Test Disk can be found here .)

The List, Enter brings the following window which will enable one copy the folders/files to another drive.

8

(The screenshot shows the system images stored in the second partition of my Maxtor External drive.)

Please keep in mind that Test Disk has to be run as an administrator.

zapp22 · Dec 19, 2011

on a suggestion from another forumee I consulted this thread.
I have an older wd1000 drive I'm working on trying to recover files if possible. BIOS does not recognize the device, therefore windows do not either and the drive causes disk management to bail. how 'bout that?

so I used Testdisk to discover and interrogate. no problems seeing drive correctly and shows smart status as good. following your steps I wrote the partition table. rebooted, drive still not coherent to bios.
reloaded Testdisk and am now trying to find some other repair to execute in hopes of making the drive searchable.

could you give me a suggestion or two?

jumanji · Dec 19, 2011

jumanji said:
PART 2:........

View attachment 178524

( Selecting a partition and hitting P as also the List, Enter in any window will show the folders/files which can be copied to any other drive in the PC. Screen shot later in this post).........

Assuming that the partition was shown correctly (Structure:OK) did you hit P and did it show any files /folders ?

If none were shown, I would assume there was none to show or Test Disk was unable to do the job.

You may try some other Recovery software.

zapp22 · Dec 19, 2011

There are two partitions: a 100mb recovery partition that is intact, readable, writeable, has dos boot thingies and PC Doctor on it. then there is the big NTFS partition which is damaged, or there is a hardware issue. In doing a 'deep search' on that partition, the program bails at 3%, encountering a cylinder that cannot be queried.
what i am wondering: if I can make the dos/doc partition active/bootable, is there a way to write to that partition the utils needed to do a NTFS rebuild? chkdsk???

jumanji said:
jumanji said:

PART 2:........

View attachment 178524

( Selecting a partition and hitting P as also the List, Enter in any window will show the folders/files which can be copied to any other drive in the PC. Screen shot later in this post).........

Click to expand...

Assuming that the partition was shown correctly (Structure:OK) did you hit P and did it show any files /folders ?

If none were shown, I would assume there was none to show or Test Disk was unable to do the job.

You may try some other Recovery software.

thisisrealmark · May 2, 2012

unable to see disk drive on testdisk

can you help me? i am unable to see my external disk drive on test disk.. i have followed your instruction carefully

F5ing · May 2, 2012

Does the BIOS and/or Disk Management recognize the drive?

thisisrealmark · May 2, 2012

the bios do recognize my external hdd but the disk management dont recognize it. it says unable to initialize drive.

thisisrealmark · May 2, 2012

the BIOS do recognize the drive but the disk management dont recognizes it. It says unable to initialize disk.

F5ing · May 2, 2012

Post a screenshot of Disk Management (maximize the window and adjust columns and such to display max info).

And if you're trying to recover data from it, don't do anything to it using Disk Management. Just wanna see what it shows...

zapp22 · May 2, 2012

i have had success with Testdisk and a few other programs [found on Ultimate Boot Disc] but running from bootable media instead of via windows - in same situation where the OS could not deal with the external drive though it is "there" on the bus. corrupted file systems unrecognizable can make it thus appear

thisisrealmark · May 3, 2012

Screenshot of my disk management

as you can see my external hdd is mark as unknown and no volume that refers to my external hdd can be found

P.S. i really need help here..all my files are stored in here.. i dont use my external hdd as a bootable drive instead i only use it for storage.. this happened when i accidentally unplugged the drive while it is still copying..hope you can help me

F5ing · May 3, 2012

What brand/model number is it?

Do you feel the drive platters start spinning when you power it up? Any slight vibration?

You might try running testdisk from a bootable CD: Ultimate Boot CD - Overview

zapp22 · May 3, 2012

this.
+1

as sibbil says - if its spinning up.

having used it a good bit, a couple of suggestions: one is to google up the tutorials and follow them. second one is my opinion: scan for a limited filetype first and see what you get: takes less time and will reveal a little about the state of your files.
for instance, you might search first for documents instead of images, or vice-versa.
on a sick drive it can take a lot of time.

also, I realize this is going to sound very scary but if the above is unproductive, you have less and less to lose: you may have to format the drive. "quick" ntfs format will not destroy data. it will make the drive discoverable, then you can look for and restore lost partitions, etc if the drive is healthy enough to keep spinning.

finally, there is a small possibility that you have an issue with your usb interface. if other measures fail, you will need to crack open the box and remove the drive, put it on the bus in your pc
z

sibbil said:
What brand/model number is it?

Do you feel the drive platters start spinning when you power it up? Any slight vibration?

You might try running testdisk from a bootable CD: Ultimate Boot CD - Overview

thisisrealmark · May 3, 2012

My external hdd is western digital my passport. Its model is wd 0740. Whenever I plugged it in the usb interface it gives a clicking sound and after a minute or two the sound went away and i can feel a weak spinning from inside. by the way my external hdd is 3-week old.

F5ing · May 3, 2012

Download WD diagnostics utility from here: WD Support / Downloads / SATA & SAS / WD VelociRaptor

Don't worry if it's not for your specific model; it's the same for most of their hard drives.

Run the quick (short) test to see if the drive is healthy and post back with results. If it doesn't fare well on the quick test don't do anything else.

The clicking is typically not good; is it a single click?

The weak spinning you feel sounds good, as long as it's quiet and constant.

torre · May 3, 2012

Just want to subscribe to this thread.

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