Hello Everyone,

I have an external disk that seems to have become corrupted. With certain windows data recovery tools I can view the files on it, however, normally it is not accessible.

In Linux it will not mount properly at all, although it is recognized properly.

I have tried dd_rescue to clone it to a new disk, it succeeds HOWEVER the new disk is also unreadable, it seems like maybe the partition is corrupted or something.

Does anyone have any suggestions of how to get files back or clone just the files but not the whole partition structure?

Thank you

Update: I started using GetDataBack FAT edition in Windows, took the new disk I cloned the old one too (since old is failing) and GDB is actually identifying directories and folders as we speak, so it seems like it may be working out.

Any input or better tools are welcomed.

Unfortunately many of your earlier comments were ambiguous and/or needed further data (e.g. exact error messages, but that's just one of the missing bits of information) so I wasn't sure about enough of your story to give further suggestions. Therefore since you report that you're recovering the data and seem to have accepted the risks of DIY, it would be a waste of time to start making different suggestions now IMHO.

If you are unsuccessful, and are ready to provide more detail about what has happened so far, then I suggest you reply in a follow-up on this thread to request further help, and see if a reader will have time to guide you with some specific questions. Good luck!

Hello Vulcan,

Well I am stuck again. The error is non existent. When I plug it into windows it just shows a disk that needs to be formatted. I can use recovery tools to view some files individually.

I tried to run GetDataBack and it detects the Fat32 file system, size, directories and files but when I get to the recovery screen it's blank.

Thanks for trying to help, although you've guessed at the wrong question I was going to ask with that answer.

I'm not promising that this is a complete list, but here are a few initial questions:

- Have you definitely accepted the risks of DIY diagnosis & recovery attempts, including that you could make things worse, or more difficult/expensive for any later professional recovery attempt, or even totally unrecoverable, due to lack of experience, human error, or just bad luck etc., and you accept the responsibility for what happens? Only continue answering my questions if the answer to this is "yes".

- What is the make, model & capacity of the original external drive?

- Is it within its warranty and the case is still unopened - meaning that an RMA / warranty replacement is still an option, and if so, is that option important to you?

- When did this problem of apparent filesystem corruption start? (date/time)

- Did anything unusual happen just before that date/time (e.g. drive was knocked / dropped / transported / powered off without a clean shutdown / borrowed by someone so that you can't be sure what happened / ...)?

- Does the drive make any strange sounds (e.g. squealing / clicking / ticking / clunking etc.)?

- You say that you cloned the original drive to a new drive using dd_rescue. Personally I use GNU ddrescue for this type of DIY, so my dd_rescue knowledge is rusty. Are you confident that all of the original drive was successfully read? If so, what evidence do you have of that (e.g. dd_rescue logfile, screenshot of successful completion screen with 0kB of errors, something else)?

- You reported the new (clone target) drive was "unreadable". You didn't use that term for the original (clone source) drive. Please explain exactly what you mean by "unreadable" and explain what error message you saw which told you that the new drive is "unreadable".

- How is that error different from when you were using the original drive (which you didn't call "unreadable")? Your different terminology makes it sound like things are worse with the new (clone target) drive.

- I don't know if you tried to mount the original drive or the clone (or both) using Linux. You say the filesystem on the drive (whichever it was) would "not mount properly at all". What was the exact command that you entered and what was the exact error message? Unlike with Windows, there will have been one from Linux.

- Do you have yet another drive, preferably totally unused, but in any case with at least with an empty partition the same size as (or larger than) the original drive, to hold recovered files?