Lost partition on an external drive

Take your own time. No problems.

One more thing. First Install the trial version of Hard Disk Sentinel and check the health of your 5 TB WD. Hard Disk Sentinel Trial version - HDD health and temperature monitoring It will give an instant response when launched. Post a screenshot. Let me make sure that the disk is in good health without any bad sectors. Then Windows Disk Management and Partition Wizard 9.1 screenshots. So your response will come with three screenshots.

Hi @joejoe3,

I have seen all the screenshots.

It is a typical case, Your drive health is OK but for a few weak sectors. It has a drive letter F: and so partition exists. No need for Partition recovery. It is a file system corruption which will require running TestDisk.

I shall write a detailed post in another hour or two. You need not wait. You can go to sleep and see my post tomorrow morning.

Do not run checkdisk.

When not in use, safely remove your external drive and keep it aside. Good night.

Continuing

Download the latest stable version 7.1 from TestDisk - CGSecurity Extract the testdisk-7.1.win.zip to the root of your system drive C:. You will run testdisk_win.exe in the extracted testdisk-7.1 folder. TestDisk should be run with administrator privileges - Run as administrator (create a shortcut on your desktop)

Screen1: [No Log] Press Enter ( You will use the Up/Down Left/Right arrow keys to highlight/select any field in the TestDisk window)

Screen 2: All Internal and external disks connected to the system should be seen by TestDisk. Highlight/Select your faulty 5TB external HDD (identified by its capacity)
[Proceed] is already highlighted. Press Enter

Screen 3: Highlight/Select [EFI GPT] (if it is not highlighted already) Enter ( Since your disk is a GPT disk, make sure [EFI GPT] is highlighted

Screen 4: Highlight/Select [Advanced] - Filesystem utils Enter

Screen 5: All partitions seen by TestDisk show up. Highlight/Select the 4657GB partition ( It may be shown as MS Data partition). Is [Boot] highlighted? Enter

Screen 6: will show the status of the Boot sector and Backup boot sector.

Various possibilities exist:

1. Boot sector - Bad
Backup boot sector - OK
Execute the [Backup BS] command ( writes the backup to the start sector of the partitïon when you confirm "y" in the next screen)

2. Boot sector - Bad
Backup boot sector - Bad
Execute [Rebuild BS] command ( Rebuilds the Volume Boot Record and writes it into the Partition start sector. The backup sector also written with the rebuilt boot record, making both identical)

3. Boot sector - OK
Backup boot sector - Bad
Execute [ORG. BS] command. ( this will copy the original boot record in the partition start sector to the backup sector)

The above three operations should repair the boot sectors and make your drive accessible.

Close TestDisk. A system reboot is required.

Please remember whenever you see a
[List] command in the page, give that command and see if the files are listed. If the files are not listed you can go back to the previous page by [Quit] Command or pressing "Q" .

The fourth possibility and an important one:
Boot Sector - OK
Backup Boot sector - OK
Hmmm... both are good. Then what is the problem? MFT???
You will execute [Repair MFT] command.

If TestDisk says "Both MFT and MFT mirror are OK" close TestDisk. You will run check disk on that volume to correct the file system corruption.
Caution: You will run checkDisk only and if only TestDisk confirms that your MFT Mirror/MFT is OK. Be patient and allow checkdisk to complete even if it takes hours and hours. Checkdisk is checking all filesystem parameters and correcting where necessary. Interrupting checkdisk halfway through will leave your data in shambles)

Run check disk from an elevated command prompt.

Type CHKDSK K: /f /v /r /x Press Enter. Note: 1. There is a space before every / 2.Replace K: with the actual drive letter of the partition to be checked. In your case it may be the 4567GB F: drive - the only partition.

Allow check disk to complete.Do not, do not, do not interrupt for any reason.

If TestDisk says it is unable to repair MFT, you will have to use a commercial software to recover the files - GetDataBack (USD80) or active @ File recovery (USD 30). These are "try before you buy" software. If these show your files, you may be able to preview/open the files and check the file integrity. You can buy a license only when you are satisfied.

If at any point you have a doubt in running TestDisk and require clarification post the screenshot and quit TestDisk.

( You can close TestDisk anytime by pressing [Quit] / repeatedly pressing "Q"/ by clicking on X in the top right side of Title Bar)

Note: For screenshots of TestDisk workflow, you can see post #6 onwards in this thread WD Elements being read as RAW // Contents readable through app - Windows 10 Forums. ( In that thread the OP was advised to select [Intel] in screen 3 since his was an MBR disk. Even though TestDisk confirmed that MFT and MFT mirror OK, he was advised not to run checkdisk and instead
[List] the files and copy it to another disk since he had only 2% freespace on his disk and with such limitation there was every possibility of checkdisk taking an abnormally long time to complete/aborting due to lack of adequate free space.)

Your drive does not appear in the list. Or you selected the wrong disk.

MaloK said:

Your drive does not appear in the list. Or you selected the wrong disk.

Good point. The RAW drive is around 4.5 TB vs 500 GB for the one in the screenshot.