Hi,
I am not sure if this is the right place for this question so please tell where it should go if not.
Recently i accidentally partially formatted a fat32 file system with NTFS on a usb hard drive (backup drive). After a bit of searching i was told that testdisk (i'm running from linux as i usually use linux) may be the way to go to recover the data. After looking thru the examples there didnt seem to be a way of recovering from this sort of problem. So i thought i would ask first before potentially making things worse. See the outputs below.
Firstly the number of sectors as calculated by testdisk are different from that designated for the particular drive (taken from the back of he drive itself = 16383,16,63 = cyl,hds,sec).
The question is what should i do next. Any help is much appreciated. Also - i couldnt seem to find a forum for testdisk itself.
Cheers.
Output from "analyse" option:
TestDisk 6.10, Data Recovery Utility, July 2008
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org
Disk /dev/sdb - 40 GB / 37 GiB - CHS 38154 64 32
Current partition structure:
Partition Start End Size in sectors
Warning: Incorrect number of heads/cylinder 255 (NTFS) != 64 (HD)
Warning: Incorrect number of sectors per track 63 (NTFS) != 32 (HD)
1 P HPFS - NTFS 0 1 32 33102 43 28 67794237
Warning: Bad ending sector (CHS and LBA don't match)
check_FAT: Bad number of entries in root dir
Invalid FAT boot sector
2 * FAT32 LBA 33102 43 29 38107 19 26 10249470
2 * FAT32 LBA 33102 43 29 38107 19 26 10249470
Warning: Bad starting sector (CHS and LBA don't match)
3 P EFI (FAT-12/16/32) 38107 19 27 38146 33 31 80325
Next
*=Primary bootable P=Primary L=Logical E=Extended D=Deleted
[Quick Search] [ Backup ]
Try to locate partition
Output from quick search option:
TestDisk 6.10, Data Recovery Utility, July 2008
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org
Disk /dev/sdb - 40 GB / 37 GiB - CHS 38154 64 32
Warning: the current number of heads per cylinder is 64
but the correct value may be 255.
You can use the Geometry menu to change this value.
It's something to try if
- some partitions are not found by TestDisk
- or the partition table can not be written because partitions overlaps.
Disk /dev/sdb - 40 GB / 37 GiB - CHS 38154 64 32
Partition Start End Size in sectors
L HPFS - NTFS 0 1 32 33102 63 32 67794881
Structure: Ok. Use Up/Down Arrow keys to select partition.
Use Left/Right Arrow keys to CHANGE partition characteristics:
*=Primary bootable P=Primary L=Logical E=Extended D=Deleted
Keys A: add partition, L: load backup, T: change type, P: list files,
Enter: to continue
NTFS, 34 GB / 32 GiB
Disk /dev/sdb - 40 GB / 37 GiB - CHS 38155 64 32
Partition Start End Size in sectors
1 E extended LBA 0 1 1 33102 63 32 67794912
5 L HPFS - NTFS 0 1 32 33102 63 32 67794881
[ Quit ] [Deeper Search] [ Write ] [Extd Part]
Try to find more partitions