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I was transferring some files to a portable drive and thunar crashed and now my 4tb drive is unrecognized. I've had a similar problem before which was resolved by using a partition recovery tool, but I've tried that plus many others and none are able to fix it, most cant even detect it.

CHKDSK says: cannot open volume for direct access, even in safe mode

gparted 'partition' 'check' fails with this log but it does recognize the drive enter image description here

testdisk finds the drive and a partition but freezes on selection of 'quick search' enter image description here

sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sdc: 3.65 TiB, 4000752599040 bytes, 7813969920 sectorsDisk model: Elements 25A1Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytesSector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytesI/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytesDisklabel type: gptDisk identifier: 13DA21F1-8582-4328-A827-56811CD1B8F7Device     Start        End    Sectors  Size Type/dev/sdc1   2048 7813967871 7813965824  3.7T Microsoft basic data

lsblk

sdc           8:32   0   3.7T  0 disk 
└─sdc1        8:33   0   3.7T  0 part

testdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sdc - 4000 GB / 3725 GiB - CHS 486397 255 63
Sector size:512
Model: WD Elements 25A1, FW:1014

I tried ntfsfix /dev/sdb1 which reported a fix, but it had no noticeable effect.

I think the data is still there, the drives still responsive and being detected, but restoring the partition is proving very difficult.

Does anyone have any idea what I could try? Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

*EDIT:

smartctl reads the device and gives this output

also sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb gives

Disk /dev/sdb: 3.65 TiB, 4000752599040 bytes, 7813969920 sectors
Disk model: Elements 25A1   
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 13DA21F1-8582-4328-A827-56811CD1B8F7

Device     Start        End    Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sdb1   2048 7813967871 7813965824  3.7T Microsoft basic data
Johnny5ive
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  • Can you try to manually mount it? sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt. What is the result? Copy just the text, no need for images. By the way, it would be strange for Thunar to cook a drive. There was probably some inconsistency in the filesystem or a hardware problem. – Eduardo Trápani Jun 20 '20 at 14:23
  • Maybe https://askubuntu.com/a/1109065/231142 might help to allow for full access to an external drive. – Terrance Jun 20 '20 at 15:30
  • @Eduardo unfortunately not, that gives: 'special device /dev/sdb1 does not exist." Terrance I was able to read the device using smartctl, I attached the output in my OP, though I'm still unable to recover the partition – Johnny5ive Jun 20 '20 at 16:56
  • Does photorec can extract files ? – laugeo Jun 20 '20 at 16:57
  • Sorry, I typed /dev/sdb1, please use your actual device: sudo mount /dev/sdbX1 /mnt, where X is the letter assigned to it (from your fdisk we know it is the first partition). – Eduardo Trápani Jun 20 '20 at 17:07
  • Ok with /sdb1 it gives the 'does not exist' error but I tried again with 'mount /sdb' and this time it gave /dev/sdb already mounted or mount point busy. though it isn't mounted – Johnny5ive Jun 20 '20 at 17:18
  • Is your drive attached to a dual boot system and do you have Windows as well? If you do, I would try to run chkdsk from Windows on it to see if it can repair the NTFS on the drive. I have not have much success with ntfsfix in Linux. – Terrance Jun 20 '20 at 23:44
  • My PC is Xubuntu only, but I have a win7 PC, I tried 'chkdsk' there but it says 'cannot open volume for direct access' it does that in safe mode too. I installed win10 on a laptop and it does the same. I made a live USB with minitool and ran 'chkdsk' from that and still the same result. My windows PC/laptop wont even boot when the drives plugged in, its like they get stuck reading it or something. I'm surprised nothing will read it as it was only a thunar crash and it's still operating and recognized by smartctl/device manager etc. I'm out of ideas atm though. Any suggestions would be great – Johnny5ive Jun 21 '20 at 23:29

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