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I have tried testdisk to recover my lost data from my external disk. I've tried that and get the below message from terminal

Disk /dev/sdc - 1000 GB / 931 GiB - CHS 121601 255 63
     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors
 1 * HPFS - NTFS              0   1  1 121600 254 63 1953520002

Boot sector
Status: OK

Backup boot sector
Status: OK

Sectors are identical.

A valid NTFS Boot sector must be present in order to access
any data; even if the partition is not bootable.

What do I need to do next? I tried to install Ubuntu with a partition on the external drive on my laptop and when I went back to get my data the external didn't show anything.

Zanna
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Savvas Potamitis
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1 Answers1

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Try a more user-freindly usb or cd/dvd bootable linux, maybe Mint or Knoppix live. You should be able to to 'fdisk -l' for partitions less than 2TB to be sure what it shows up as. You may be able to use the gui filemanager to mount it, but command line mount will show you errors if they exist. Also, use Midnight Commander if you can, it'll be faster and easier to get your files if they are there. Command is just 'mc'. Use arrow keys and Enter to navigate. 'apt-get install mc' if it's not installed.

jdmayfield
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  • Although you might be able to use those utils from testdisk. I haven't used it. But a bigger, mainstream distro might have better working versions of the sametools, or at least available via apt or apt-get if it's debian-based. There's a lot of variation. Make sure you have a recent copy. I had this happen a couple times, and Windows could no longer read the disk, but linux could mount it normally, files intact. Personally, I never trust installers or repartitioners with important data unless I have a backup and time, so I always disconnect any drives I'm not installing to. – jdmayfield Oct 28 '17 at 07:15
  • Sorry for the additional comments.. forgot to mention, it looks to me like Ubuntu did not install to this partition as it would not show as ntfs, so there's a decent chance your files are there but Windows can't see them if the bootsector was changed, which is probably what's going on. Also, testdisk might not understand it either. I think I remember it having trouble with large drives, but don't quote me on that. In any case, you'll probably have to copy them to something else, then reformat the whole disk from Windows, if found, then copy back. At least to be easy for you. – jdmayfield Oct 28 '17 at 07:33
  • You can [edit] your post instead of commenting on it to add further information – Zanna Oct 29 '17 at 10:10