hi, anyone has any thoughts about my case? here’s a summary:
Windows 7
1 terabyte My Book 3.0 partitioned into 687.37 gig & 244.14 gig
original FAT table was unchanged from purchase, i’m not sure if it’s FAT32 or NTFS
one day the whole hard disk became undetectable.
after testdisk Analyze taking 72 hours, it was detected as
model number: WDBAAK0010HCH-00 1911B
Drive J: - 738 GB / 687 GiB - WD My Book 3.0 1123
CHS 1441517568 1 1, sector size=512
So what happened was, it managed to detect the first partition as “Drive J:” with the correct size. however, the reported geometry is (probably) wrong. It did not detect the second partition.
Disk Management also reads two “drives”, both RAW, in the correct sizes 687.37 gig & 244.14 gig.
I tried to key in a different geometry. I got some further geometry information after consulting Western Digital support centre, as
Western Digital Caviar Black, 64 mb cache, model: WD1001FAES-00W7A0
LBA: 1953525168
So it seems that sectors = 1953525168 x 512 sector size = 1 terabyte, that seems to fit. except that
LBA: 1953525168 does not fit exactly into 255 heads 63 sectors, there is a decimal place. it seems that others on the internet have a similar strange geometry as well, see link:
http://www.gearhack.com/Forums/DisplayComments.php?file=Computer/Western_Digital_Elements_External_Hard_Drive_Disassembly
I used the numbers derived, as recommended on the net, to re-Analyze testdisk.
cylinders 121601 heads 255 sectors 63 size 512
the analysis was very very fast, within a few minutes, but partition detected was nothing.
Since it detects Drive J: as the first partition, I tried to calculate how many heads this partition will take, and enter geometry as:
89730.5228822 so I have to enter 89731 cylinders, heads 255, sectors 63, size 512
Also, nothing got detected.
not sure what happened in my situation, seems that everyone’s managed to testdisk a solution way earlier than me. I didn’t accidentally format my drive either, nor damage it. it happened spontaneously.
testdisk only allows me to “A” add my own partition information, or “L” load some information, but does not detect anything to help me.
anyone has any further thoughts what might be happening? most suggestions I am receiving are last-ditch methods, am I down to that?
Thanks!