I Did Something Bad To My External HDD's & Can't Access Them.

jumanji said:

Ok, If I post what all was running in my mind during this interregnum it will become unbearably long . So I will cut it short.

" Can't open file System. Filesystem seems damaged"

Christopher Grenier, the author of TestDisk recommends running checkdisk.

We had done it and done it successfully in many cases. But only in cases where MFT and MFT mirror matched but still the disk was not accessible.

Read this https://www.sevenforums.com/hardware...xplorer-2.html and then this https://www.sevenforums.com/hardware...ugh-app-2.html

Read also my note 3 in post #36 in this thread.

Rerun TestDisk, in screen 8 where it says Bootsector OK, Backup bootsector OK, move the highlight to [Repair MFT] and press ENTER. TestDisk is highly interactive. So I cannot predict what exactly will the next screen say. Post a screenshot of the ensuing screen. If I am not online and do not respond within half an hour, close TestDisk by hitting on X in the title bar top right and wait for my response. Do not hit on any other command to proceed on your own.

I will wait until you have read my two replies before doing anything else. After you have read them (I am just being cautious), I will carry out whatever you instruct next.

OK,

1. During the TesiDisk run, it found that the bootsector is Bad but the backup bootsector was OK. Are you sure it said the backup bootsector is OK before you did the [Backup BS] command?

2. "a disk read error occurred. BootMGR is compressed." Can you please elaborate and tell the process during which this error message occurs? Post a screenshot of that too. ( This error message is usually associated with the System disk and may occur when booting the system. I am not aware of an external disk throwing this message)

1. Absolutely positive. I had this thread open on a tablet so I could compare our Screen Captures.
My "Boot Sector Status: Bad" & "Backup Boot Sector Status: OK" were identical to yours. If they were not, I would not have continued.

2. After I did the [Backup BS] command, I closed TestDisk, ejected the drive, turned off the Dock & restarted Dock. Started Bootice again, I took another capture of sector 63. There is a change. In the right column, were the words "a disk read error occurred. BootMGR is compressed."

I will run Bootice again and take two captures.
The first will be of Sector 63 of the faulty drive and the other will be a capture of the good drive Boot sector at Sector 2048, for comparison.

I wrote to the good drive this morning, placing a 3D movie on it and it performs faultlessly.

Neither of these drives has been inside a computer as they both came out of Desktop USB 3.0 enclosures (external USB drives).

Sector 63 of the faulty drive:


Sector 2048 of the good drive:

You are getting too smart . Don't try to read the sector map. . It is for the system to read and put out the appropriate error message when it encounters that error. (If at all, you should compare the VBR @63 with that of another VBR @63 from another same drive with exactly the same partition structure and not with a VBR@2048.They are coded slightly different. That is why I gave up the idea of transplant when I came to know your other good, same drive had its VBR @2048. I cannot transplant VBR@2048 to sector 63)

Now do this:

Rerun TestDisk, in screen 8 where it says Bootsector OK, Backup bootsector OK, move the highlight to [Repair MFT] and press ENTER. TestDisk is highly interactive. So I cannot predict what exactly will the next screen say. Post a screenshot of the ensuing screen. If I am not online and do not respond within half an hour, close TestDisk by hitting on X in the title bar top right and wait for my response. Do not hit on any other command to proceed on your own.

I shall be off now ( cooling off ) and return after another hour or so.

Done.
TestDisk [Repair MFT] Capture:

jumanji (If at all, you should compare the VBR @63 with that of another VBR @63 from another same drive with exactly the same partition structure and not with a [EMAIL="VBR@2048.They" said:

VBR@2048.They[/EMAIL] are coded slightly different. That is why I gave up the idea of transplant when I came to know your other good, same drive had its VBR @2048. I cannot transplant VBR@2048 to sector 63)

Understand now. A couple of questions:

1). I have many external USB external HDD's, some Seagate & some Western Digital. If I examined them with Bootice and found a VBR at Sector 63 and it is a 2TB, does it matter if it is a Western Digital drive? (my faulty drive is Seagate).

2). Does it matter if a drive is larger than 2TB (with its VBR at Sector 63)?

3). Does it matter if a drive is a 2.5 inch?

hmmm............the worst had happened. Both MFT and MFT mirror is damaged and TestDisk has proclaimed it can't repair it.

My note in post #36:

2. If both Boot sector and Backup boot sector are OK , then move the highlight to [ Repair MFT] and Press Enter and Proceed. In most cases TestDisk may fail to repair MFT. You may have to use commercial software such as Active@filerecovery, Getdataback,ZeroAssumptionRecovery to recover the data.

3. If both bootsector and Backup bootsector are OK and TestDisk declares MFT also is OK, then run "CHKDSK K: /f /v /r /x from an elevated Command Prompt. Note: Replace K: with the actual drive letter of the external drive" and that should fix your disk." Caution: Do not run this straightaway on a RAW disk. You should do this only after and if TestDisk declares boot sector, backup bootsector and MFT are OK.

You can do either of the following to recover the data which you said are mainly mkv files.

1. Use PhotoRec instead of TestDisk. You can find photorec_win.exe in the same TestDisk folder.

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec ( You will only get a bunch of files without the original folder/file structure and names. PhotoRec ignores the file system; this way it works even if the file system is severely damaged.).

Guide to using PhotoRec - by jumanji : https://www.sevenforums.com/software...-software.html


2. Try the demo version of active @filerecovery: Active@ File Recovery: download evaluation version for free

Read the User Guide. If it shows your folders and files , I believe you can open (play) those to check the integrity. If you are happy with it, you need to buy it (USD29 or so) to copy those to another drive. Thanks to @SIW2 for recommending this.

(My recommendation had been GetDataback Simple https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm (USD69 or so) but one user had found that active@filereovery is better than GetDataBack.)

Thank you. What are your answers to my three questions in post #57?

theoldfarter said:

Understand now. A couple of questions:

1). I have many external USB external HDD's, some Seagate & some Western Digital. If I examined them with Bootice and found a VBR at Sector 63 and it is a 2TB, does it matter if it is a Western Digital drive? (my faulty drive is Seagate).

2). Does it matter if a drive is larger than 2TB (with its VBR at Sector 63)?


3). Does it matter if a drive is a 2.5 inch?

The drive should have the same total sector count. A 2TB WD and a 2TB Seagate may not have the same number of Total sector count and can be marginally different. All this info is coded into the VBR so that the OS can find the end sector and all other details of that partition. So ideally it should be same brand, same model, same batch, the same total sector count , same partition structure.

Though such a transplant is theoretically valid, I hadn't tried it so far. And so far I haven't come across any one having tried that. You presented an opportunity but unfortunately the partition start point of the other drive was 2048. If such a transplant had worked and brought your drive alive then there would have been no need to run TestDisk.