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I am trying to mount my old windows hdd with ntfs filesystem. The hdd was partitioned in 3 partitions.

/dev/sdb1  *         2048     206847    204800   100M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2          206848  614402047 614195200 292,9G7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3       614402048 1465145343 850743296 405,7G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

I can mount sdb1 and sdb2 without problems, but not sdb3 (which contains the most important data). I tried to run ntfsfix, but this was not working:

sudo ntfsfix /dev/sdb3 
Mounting volume... NTFS signature is missing.
FAILED
 Attempting to correct errors... NTFS signature is missing.
FAILED
Failed to startup volume: Invalid argument
NTFS signature is missing.
Trying the alternate boot sector
Unrecoverable error

Gdisk also returns strange errors: 

sudo gdisk -l /dev/sdb3

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1
Partition table scan:   MBR: MBR only   BSD: not present   APM: not
present   GPT: not present 
***************************************************************  
Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format in memory. 
***************************************************************

 Exact type match not found for type code F500; assigning type code for
 'Linux filesystem' Exact type match not found for type code 9600;
 assigning type code for 'Linux filesystem' Exact type match not found
 for type code 9200; assigning type code for 'Linux filesystem' Exact
 type match not found for type code 9900; assigning type code for
 'Linux filesystem'

 Warning! Secondary partition table overlaps the last partition by
 4760393812 blocks! You will need to delete this partition or resize it
 in another utility. Disk /dev/sdb3: 850743296 sectors, 405.7 GiB
 Logical sector size: 512 bytes Disk identifier (GUID):
 DBE028FB-546C-4EA6-A766-727D9F67E559 Partition table holds up to 128
 entries First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 850743262
 Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries Total free space is
 850743229 sectors (405.7 GiB)

 Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name    1    
 2914562731      5373511561   1.1 TiB     8300  Linux filesystem    2  
 2985685759      5326929304   1.1 TiB     8300  Linux filesystem    3  
 2559413164      4901128831   1.1 TiB     8300  Linux filesystem    4  
 1316225013      5611137074   2.0 TiB     8300  Linux filesystem

I also tried to use the windows chkdsk, but the sdb3 is shown in windows, but cannot be accessed by chkdsk or any other tool (and cannot be mounted, too).

I don't want to destroy the data, so I did not do anything else and I have no idea, what to do now. As I can read and write on the other partitions, I hope, that the HDD has no physical damage.
It would be great, if somebody has an idea, what do do / how to recover the NTFS signature to rescue the data?

Thank you very much in advance

Edit: Windows is installed on partition sdb2 which can be mounted. Sdb3 only contains data. Sdb3 is not accessible in windows and is not encrypted.

John Barret
  • 33
Norovis
  • 11
  • So the data of /dev/sda3 is accessible in Windows? Is the partition encrypted? – Thomas Aug 31 '16 at 16:49
  • No, the data are not accessible in Windows. Windows recommends me to format the partion. The other partions are accessable. None of the partions is encrypted – Norovis Aug 31 '16 at 16:51
  • Given all you tried and it's inaccible from Windows, I fear your data is lost. At this point you will probably need tools that search for file without taking into account the filesystem. – jawtheshark Aug 31 '16 at 16:55
  • One does not simply "recover the NTFS signature". You need much more than that. – Andrea Lazzarotto Sep 02 '16 at 09:45

0 Answers0