Partition Recovery/ Incorrect Parameter For External Hard Drive

Megahertz said:

@RockieOllie, now you know the value of a backup.

External drives aren't as reliable as internal drives. External drives can be damaged by movements and impacts.

Buy two first grade 3.5" HDDs. (like WD Gold or HGST)
One you install inside of your desktop and keep permanently "alive" as a data drive.
The second you install inside of your desktop but keep it "detached" (remove the SATA or power cable or simply set the SATA port as disabled). This prevents a malware to damage your backups.

Regularly (I do it once a week) you "attach" the backup drive and run a backup software. The backup drive should be bigger than the data drive so it can store the data drive and the Windows drive backups.

Lessoned learned. reformatted the problem drive and using the new drive I bought to backup with redundancy files as well backing up all my files.

jumanji said:

@RockieOllie,

Contnuing with post#20,

For TestDisk Screenshots see here - from post#6 onwards. WD Elements being read as RAW // Contents readable through app - Windows 7 Forums

I repeat the steps here specific to your case.

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

Screen 2: Highlight/Select your 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

Note: If the partition style of your 5TB WD Element shows as MBR , then only select [Intel]

Screen 4: Highlight/Select [Advanced] Enter

Screen 5: Does this screen show your single partition highlighted? Is [Boot] highlighted? Enter

Screen 6: will show the status of the Boot sector and Backup boot sector. Further action will depend on their status.

Various possibilities exist:

1. Boot sector - Bad
Backup boot sector - OK
Execute the [Backup BS] command Highlight and press Enter ( 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. Highlight and press Enter ( Rebuilds the Volume Boot Record and writes it into the Partition start sector and partition end sector)

3. Boot sector - OK
Backup boot sector - Bad
Execute [ORG. BS] command.Highlight and press Enter ( this will copy the original boot record in the partition start sector to the partition end sector and make it OK.)

The above three operations should repair the boot sectors and make your drive accessible. A reboot is required. Close TestDisk and reboot

Please remember whenever you see a
[List] command in the page, give that command and if the files are listed copy to destination. 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.

Good day @jumanji,

I have run into this parameter is incorect too.
My External HDD is WD MyPassport Ultra 2TB.
Before I run testdisk, I checkdisk my hdd and it end up with chkdsk aborted, it was unable to read the disk I guess.
Then after running testdisk i got option 4 as a result. then,

May you please impart me with knowledge of what should I do?
I dont mind losing some data, however I need to know what data did I lost.

Thank you for your respond to my plea, @jumanji.
Take your time, you are basically helping me, I have no right to rush you.

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And thank you for welcoming me.

I don't know if this information is useful.
However, my external hdd basically new, I try to move and backup data from an older hdd.
The last time I functionally used my new hdd, I need to shut down my laptop since it wont let me safely remove or eject it.

I am sorry about time zone setting. I thought it should not post any problem because I have a sporadic sleeping schedule, like I sleep when I am sleepy even if the birds chirp cheerfully.

I though checkdisk wont wound my external HDD since it got aborted (oh, I am not the one who aborted it, its the cmd) after stating the disk is NTFS, despite RAW in disk management. It seems to me that checkdisk totally refuse to read the device. I guess the damage still done.

A tad bit info I read in WD link I shared to you. I guess other buyer have same problem with me, since the device become faulty only after the warranty run out. This might be a reason for how the device suddenly fail to perform. The other one of two devices I bought, with different model still run peacefully, I pray it stay that way.

I'll try Getdataback pro. However I am afraid that it will interfere with my graphic program. I'll do it after I finish several drawings. Might do it several days ahead.

I'll report after I finish scanning my device. Thank you very much, @jumanji.

Good day, @jumanji.

I did the scan with GETDATABACK pro as you suggested.
It read big chunk of NTFS data.

So, I also tried scanning with other recovery program, and it also read different good amount of NTFS data.

Both programs read mostly video files, While lostfile without name were mostly my tools and assets in the form of compressed file, sound, png, doc and pdf.

I already save both recovery scan results. and retried to repair mft with testdisk by following your steps.
Still, testdisk couldn't repair the mft.
May I know the next step I better execute?

I wonder, if I couldn't repair the current disk, can I format and reuse it to store less important files?

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I feel like I am seeking trouble for myself if I reuse the drive.

Since today is sunday, I hope you have a good resting day.
And I am in no rush.