TestDisk finds partition during scan that's not listed in the results

Mark_667 · 11-28-2013, 02:04 PM

I have a HD that had a EXT3 partition on it but something happened (not sure what) that must have overwritten the partition table. I don't think the data's been overwritten and when I run a TestDisk (6.14) it finds the missing partition straight away and it keeps getting listed out during the scan. But when the scan completes the only entry is for a 100MB Windows utility partition.

Why's it doing this? How can I get it to allow me to work with the Linux partition it found?

hal8000b · 11-29-2013, 02:31 AM

I would start by posting the geometry and partition table of the hard drive.
Include the output of these commands:

sudo sfdisk -g /dev/sda (change sda to correct drive)

sudo sfdisk -lu /dev/sda

I always print a paper copy of my hard drives partition
table including start and end sectors, very quick and
easy to repartition if anything bad happens.

Mark_667 · 11-29-2013, 04:57 AM

I got the following, not sure where to go from here.

Quote:

$ sudo sfdisk -g /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb: 60801 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
$
$ sudo sfdisk -lu /dev/sdb
unrecognised format - using sectors

Disk /dev/sda: 30401 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
<snip>
Disk /dev/sdb: 60801 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
Warning: The partition table looks like it was made
for C/H/S=*/224/19 (instead of 60801/255/63).
For this listing I'll assume that geometry.
Units = sectors of 512 bytes, counting from 0

Device Boot Start End #sectors Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 206847 204800 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
start: (c,h,s) expected (0,107,16) found (0,32,33)
end: (c,h,s) expected (48,134,14) found (12,223,19)
/dev/sdb2 0 - 0 0 Empty
/dev/sdb3 0 - 0 0 Empty
/dev/sdb4 0 - 0 0 Empty

<snip>
$

jefro · 11-29-2013, 02:52 PM

Test disk can't fix or find all issues. At one time the best tool was Ranish. It may still be possible to use it.

You may try moving the drive to another computer. Voltage and data connections from system may be at fault.