Recovery expert needed for ext 2TB drive

Your Airbag

Hi Guys I need help. I have a 2TB HDD that won't play ball anymore.

What happened was I copied a movie across to it. Disconnected it from Windows and plugged it into my PS3 so i could play the movie through my HDTV but when I plugged it into the PS3 it didn't recognise the drive, it had numerous times before within seconds. I plugged it back into my laptop and windows then failed to see it.

Linux will pick up the drive. It will show the contents of all folders except my movie folder where the bulk of the data is. Linux tells me that folder is empty but when I do a properties lookup on the drive it has the correct amount of data used and spare.

There was 102gb spare on the 2TB drive (I know I should have backed it up when it got so full, I had ordered a 2tb backup drive already, it arrived three days after the crash :mad:) when the last data copied over so I believe its all still there as Linux tells me this is still the case.

I believe the last file i copied across may have not done something iffy and if I could get rid of it maybe I could see my data again, the problem is its not showing the contents of this folder anymore.

I am pretty computer savy. I have used testdisk and photorec to repair the partition table. A FSCK on Linux didn't help and tools such as adepto on the Helix live CD are not giving me any joy. When doing an ls on what I believe to be the corrupt folder i get nothing, everything else shows.

Another funny thing is that when I go into one of the other big folders on the drive it takes a long time to populate it in Linux, usually its seconds.

So do you guys know any amazing Linux commands that can save me as thats the only OS that picks up the drive.

unkel

Did you take the drive out of the external enclosure and connect it directly to the inside of a PC? Or do you only have a laptop?

Your Airbag

No I haven't. The external closure has no visible means of sepearating, such as micro screws.

What should I do if I remove it?

PrzemoF

I never tried that, but looks promising:

http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/24518/recovering-ntfs-drive-with-safecopy

http://safecopy.sourceforge.net/

Torqay

Your Airbag wrote: »

I plugged it back into my laptop and windows then failed to see it.

It "failed to see" the drive or the partition?

Does it show up in the Disk Manager? If so, use Partition Recovery (formerly Partition Table Doctor).

Your Airbag

Torqay wrote: »

It "failed to see" the drive or the partition?

Does it show up in the Disk Manager? If so, use Partition Recovery (formerly Partition Table Doctor).

In the Win7 disk manager it shows up as a Raw healthy, active primary partition.

In my computer its shows the drive but says is inaccessible.

It didn't show in XP for me before or WIN7 but just did now when I tired, it does take win7 a long time to pick it up though. I still cant access the drive.

Torqay

Either the partition table is banjaxed or the drive is on it's way out.

Your Airbag

Torqay wrote: »

Either the partition table is banjaxed or the drive is on it's way out.

So any hope of getting my data back is gone?

Torqay

Not necessarily. Did you run Partition Recovery?

If you can't restore the partition, WinHex should be able to get your data back.

They also have a "lite" version, Davory, based on the same technology, more user-friendly and for recovery only. Both are not free, the unregistered version will only show you what can be recovered.

Since Windows would not see any partition, select the physical disk to recover from:

Your Airbag

Torqay wrote: »

Not necessarily. Did you run Partition Recovery?

If you can't restore the partition, WinHex should be able to get your data back.

They also have a "lite" version, Davory, based on the same technology, more user-friendly and for recovery only. Both are not free, the unregistered version will only show you what can be recovered.

Since Windows would not see any partition, select the physical disk to recover from:

I used Winhex to browse the drive and tried to recover each movie folder individually but when I copy to my local machine the folder contents is empty.

The drive is stilling giving me the correct data amounts though which you think means they are still there somewhere, is there a deeper function search in WinHex that I could use?