Recover RAW HDD(External) Partition

[hitman.sunny]

First of all sorry guys, i understand i'm making a new topic for a old same problem and there must be many posts regarding this problem...but i'm in a big trouble.

So,

My external WD MyBook Essential 1TB is being recognized as RAW by Windows 7 and XP. i'm unable to open the drive in my computer obviously. Drive was factory formatted and i didn't made any partition on that(i.e. single partition of 930 GBs). Drive contains around 50 GBs of important photos for which i don't have any backup. I think partition got corrupted because USB got disconnected accidently. I've tried all the recovery softwares but many photos are not yet found. I ran TestDisk on that drive which says "File System is Corrupted".
I'm not able to understand the procedure of running testdisk and repairing partition also i'm afraid of losing my data due to any mishappening during recovery since i'm novice in this area. I also have installed many applications which claim that they can rebuild partition table but m afraid of using those applications too.

One thing i'm thinking of is making an image of corrupted hard drive partition and saving it to another hard disk and then doing R&D on crashed HDD.

I want few suggestions from you guys-
1. I've made a backup of Partition table(.dat file), can i restore this backup if something goes wrong during recovery and my data will be safe?
2. Can the image i'll create of whole HDD will be useful if recovery fails(i.e. can i use it to start recovery procedure again)?
And finally
3. Suggest me a way to recover my partition.
i'm attaching screen shots which i got after deep scan from TestDisk
Thanks in advance guys,,,i'm in a big trouble please help me...

Attachments

[sathyan]

One thing i'm thinking of is making an image of corrupted hard drive partition and saving it to another hard disk and then doing R&D on crashed HDD.

I want few suggestions from you guys-
1. I've made a backup of Partition table(.dat file), can i restore this backup if something goes wrong during recovery and my data will be safe?
2. Can the image i'll create of whole HDD will be useful if recovery fails(i.e. can i use it to start recovery procedure again)?
And finally
3. Suggest me a way to recover my partition.
i'm attaching screen shots which i got after deep scan from TestDisk
Thanks in advance guys,,,i'm in a big trouble please help me...

1 & 2. create a clone , using ddrescue/mtp, and work on the clone copy. not on the original corrupted drive.
this way the original condition of the drive remains and can be used to make clones if necessary.Only after
you have got all your data in working condition, think of reusing the old dirve.

3. instead of trying to recover the partition, try running a full scan on the cloned drive using tools like R-studio and recover your
data.Check the files you have recovered .There are chances that some files may be corrupt, due to fragmentation, but you can use different recovery tools to get better and different results

[Vulcan]

@hitman.sunny,

You've already received some good advice from sathyan. Also, as with any DIY attempt like you are planning, there are risks that you will make things worse (or perhaps totally unrecoverable) due to human error or other reasons, so you have to consider and accept these risks, if you decide to continue.

Personally I would use a slightly different approach to the one suggested already, but unfortunately I think it would be too complex for you, as you don't have the necessary experience. It would also require more disk space for (at least one more) "working copy" of the clone. Therefore I'll just give 2 replies to your questions:

1. I've made a backup of Partition table(.dat file), can i restore this backup if something goes wrong during recovery and my data will be safe?

No. Only having a copy of the partition table does not mean that all your data is safe.

2. Can the image i'll create of whole HDD will be useful if recovery fails(i.e. can i use it to start recovery procedure again)?

Yes, you can try to do this, although there are risks e.g. you must get the direction of clone corect, and you need to research and decide where to store your clone target(s) - file or raw disk - and to understand how you could use them. For example, for some uses, a clone on a raw disk is easier to use under Windows than a clone into a file.

However your original problem is not (or not only) logical corruption of the filesystem. Notice the read error in your last screenshot (HD Deep Scan.png) - so one or more sectors are unreadable (with standard Windows retries) on the original disk. With the currently available information, we don't yet know how many sectors are unreadable.

Therefore any cloning attempt should use software (like those already mentioned by sathyan) which doesn't stop (and allows retry control) when there are any initially unreadable sectors. In your case, I suggest not use TestDisk to perform the cloning, as that has no retry control - unless you cannot understand any better cloning software. There have been many previous threads about cloning software - search the forum and read them. Good luck!

[hitman.sunny]

Thanks Sathyan and Vulcan for your valuable suggestions. I'll create a clone copy of whole HDD into another HDD which i believe then behave like my current corrupted HDD, meanwhile i'll search for related posts in Forum. Since my HDD is still in warranty so i'm not opening its case now. I'm also looking for an expert intervention in recovery process which can assure recovery of my partition...

@ Vulcan
Yes you are right there are many bad and unreadable sectors in HDD. Will try to find a way out.

[sathyan]

Since my HDD is still in warranty so i'm not opening its case now.

You won't achieve anything by opening the drive other than spoiling any chance of recovery.
Do not open the cover, it will only make matters worse.

Clone the drive ,raw copy , to another drive, ( try reverse clone if direct clone stops or gives lots of errors)

Vulcan has pointed you to in right direction detailing the common mistakes that user can make and the risks of DIY, along with the best option an DIY user can do.

I'm also looking for an expert intervention in recovery process which can assure recovery of my partition...

If your data is VERY important, there are chances that you may deteriorate the drives condition by DIY efforts and make it difficult for DR and expensive for yourself.
In this condition , it will be a pretty straightforward job for a good DR company with proper tools.
You have to decide.
good luck