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when I install and run testdisk from Artix repos it says: error while loading shared libraries: libntfs-3g.so.90: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory In /usr/lib is already more recent version libntfs-3g.so.91 So testdisk needs...

USB drive says it needs formatting? Learn what not to click, diagnose RAW or No Media errors, and safely recover files using TestDisk or PhotoRec.

Download TestDisk & PhotoRec. TestDisk is a free and open source data recovery software tool designed to recover lost partition and unerase deleted files. PhotoRec is a file carver data recovery software tool.

Learn how to access Linux EXT4 partitions, restore missing partitions, and recover files from damaged ext4 file systems on Windows.

"Contribute to Open Source: the right way" is my free and open source book, about... _Open Source_! It will help you improve your skills and understand how to start this journey! The situation is quite simple: I have a hard drive that I’ve owned for 10 years; Linux was no longer detecting it, even though it was formatted with ext4. I decided to test the AI ​​to check the drive and see what commands it would recommend to get it working again. I didn’t want to use TestDisk because it would have resulted in a huge number of disorganized files; I wanted to find out if the partition table was corrupted. In the end, after two days, it turned out that only the partition table sectors were damaged. Here is the timeline of events: Linux detected the disk itself: `/dev/sda 931.5G disk TOSHIBA MQ01ABD100` and also detected a partition: `/dev/sda1 931.5G part` All the commands were generated by ChatGPT (that I checked before executing them). ## First Attempt: TestDisk TestDisk reported an Intel/MBR partition table and showed a partition: `1 P Linux 0 1 1 121600 254 63 1953520002` The partition occupied essentially the entire disk. However, TestDisk could not find a recognizable ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem during its analysis (and I didn’t remember what was the partition type). More importantly, its debug output contained errors such as: `file_pread(...) read err: Error input/output` At this point the problem was no longer simply “the partition table is missing.” The disk itself was having trouble reading certain sectors. I then used: `file -s /dev/sda` which reported: `DOS/MBR boot sector` But the partition told a very different story: `file -s /dev/sda1` returned: Linux rev 1.0 ext4 filesystem data, UUID=e5f6ef47-5e23-4209-a374-09f6a8348cf1, volume name "ADATA" The partition contained an ext4 filesystem and it had a recognizable UUID and volume label: UUID: e5f6ef47-5e23-4209-a374-09f6a8348cf1 Label: ADATA So the filesystem itself was not necessarily gone. ## Creating a Recovery Image with GNU ddrescue I did not initially have another 1 TB disk available specifically for the recovery image, but eventually I was able to create one. I used GNU ddrescue: `ddrescue -f -r3 /dev/sdg /run/media/mte90/bighdd/sdg.img /run/media/mte90/bighdd/sda.log` The important part is that ddrescue works differently from a simple `dd`. It is designed specifically for failing disks. It records which areas were successfully copied and which areas could not be read in a mapfile. After approximately 3.5 hours, the result was: rescued: 1000 GB pct rescued: 99.99% read errors: 33 bad areas: 1 bad-sector: 4096 B The ddrescue mapfile contained: 0x00000000 0x00008000 + 0x00008000 0x00001000 - 0x00009000 0xE8E0DAD000 + The `-` region represented the unreadable portion. The important result was that **99.99% of the disk was fine**. The image was approximately the full size of the original disk, not merely the amount of space occupied by files. So I mounted the image instead of working on the damaged disk. With various commands the filesystem metadata where there including all my files (after I mount the image). After various test in read-only the AI generated the command to exclude the sector damaged and regenerate a new one: `e2fsck -f -y -b 32768 /dev/sdd1` ## Conclusion The AI was very cautious but when I discovered that it was fine and I had the dd img, I didn’t wanted to recover the file and instead fix the partition table. At the end of the day the files were copied and safe, the experience was interesting to learn how works a bit the file system and also about the various sectors because n this case `63` was important as store the partition table. Liked it? Take a second to support Mte90 on Patreon!

TestDisk er et gratis program som er basert på åpen kildekode og som kan brukes til å gjenopprette tapte partisjoner og kan også brukes til å redde disker som ikke lenger er oppstartbare. Les...

Pas goed op je data Dat zou eigenlijk de wijze raad moeten zijn die elke moderne grootmoeder aan haar kleinkinderen geeft. We leven ons leven steeds meer digitaal rond een smartphone, laptop en onge...

TestDisk is a free and open source data recovery software tool designed to recover lost partition and unerase deleted files.

Download TestDisk & PhotoRec. TestDisk is a free and open source data recovery software tool designed to recover lost partition and unerase deleted files. PhotoRec is a file carver data recovery softw...

Dans ce tutoriel, nous allons apprendre à utiliser TestDisk pour récupérer les données d'une partition RAW présente sur un disque, une clé USB, etc...