Hello Rick!

11 Sep 19, Rick Christian wrote to Bbsing Bbs:

 RC> Standard USB external HD (not a SSD! I don't use or trust that
 RC> garbage)

 RC> This is why I don't use SSD unreliable and write limited.

Reality Check: My SSD works fine, what is broken on your side?
HDD are unreliable and are write limited just like any other storage media too.
They are sold with a MTBF with the warranty that they will fail.

In 20 years i lost two internal HDD, had two new HDD with many badblocks
(replaced by warranty), one dead SSD and two sudden death USB Sticks.

Bashing one type of storage may calm your emotions, but it would not help you.

 RC> I can SEE THE PARTIOTION in test disk...

You don't. You see the data entry in the partition table which tells you where
the real partition was.

 RC> it just comes up with the Message "Can't mount drive.... "  if I plug
 RC> it in and try to access it like normal use.

 BB>> If your computer is reporting a different size of the drive than

 RC> Just can't access the drive if I plug it in...

How could you see something with testdisk then?

 BB>> NOTE!!! dd can wipe out all data on your drive if used
 BB>> incorrectly. NOTE(2) dd can take a long long time to read a 4TB
 BB>> drive.

 RC> dd is too dangerous for use for exactly #1, and #2.

If you are talking about too dangerous and risky you must use dd to reduce risk
and danger. There is no way around.

If you are working with the original data there is a high risk that any rescue
tool make things worse or destroy mandatory data.

At the moment you don't know what kind of damage you have. Is there a software
failure in the data structure on the disk or do you have a real hardware
failure that prevents some kind of data to be read.

The first thing is to make a mirror of the damaged device. dd_rescue is a
useful Linux tool for that. If testdisk finds something, than some data can be
read. dd_rescue copies all data that can be read to another disk and skips the
unreadable data. It's suggested to keep the first mirror and make a working
copy of that mirror for trouble shooting. A broken disk could loose more data
with every usage. Creating additional mirrors from the original disk may result
into additional data loss.

 RC> 1) What acn be done via testdisk to use its internal backup/recovery
 RC> options.... BEFORE I DO

It can recover the partition table, the partition directory, from a backup
sector. It can't repair a broken filesystem i.e. if the filesystem can't be
mounted.

 RC> 2) Reset the info, likely the partition info, so that plugging it in
 RC> and selecing to open in file manager or mounting it other ways works

Can't work. A partition can hold one of dozens of different file systems which
are mounted in different ways. Linux also does not need a partition, a
filesystem can be placed directly on /dev/sdx.

 RC> I have HUGE RISK AVERSION. Meaning that measure 40x then review,
 RC> measure 50x more, review.. backup backup backup.. try it...

Hm, sounds like you overkilled your disk with too many backups.

 RC> So I'd like to use testdisk to suck out the data I can to say either
 RC> another 4TB drive I attach to the box and then I can review what I've
 RC> recovered and go from there.. then test out the steps to recover the
 RC> disk..

Sounds good. Step one: Suck out data = use dd_rescue

 RC>  ie: do the x,y,z in testdisk to reset it and then see if it is
 RC> mountable...

 RC> I just can seem to find a GOOD STEP BY STEP EXPLAIN it in full for
 RC> testdisk , that after I am at the point, below, do, x,y,z to reset
 RC> things so the drive is mountable...

There are too many if then else in the process to write them down in a step by
step tutorial. Many things are useless and do not apply if a previous "else"
matches.

testdisk is for partitions and testdisk tells you:

 RC> NTFS filesystem need to be repaired.

that your filesystem is broken. So testdisk is useless.

I don't know how reliable the linux ntfs repair modes are, if your mirror disk
is ready you maybe could give an MS system a try.

Regards

Kai

--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.4.7