I used to have a desktop which was running on a 160GB internal hard drive. I moved cities, so I ditched the desktop and took out just my internal to the new place. The disk has Ubuntu 12.04 installed as the OS.
It's a Seagate SATA 3.5" internal drive and it has a lot of important data which I would like to recover now. So, I bought an external enclosure (Rocketfish) and even though on Windows, I can see it on Device Manager, the drive doesn't show up. I can't see it at all on my Laptop (which runs Ubuntu 14.04). Rocketfish suggests that I format and repartition the drive to be able to use it, but that's not what I want to do. I want to be able to access the data in the internal disk.
Since I don't want to format it, I'm looking for options which will help me access the data as it is. Should I be looking for more external enclosure options or adapters which will help me do this? Or will all of them require me to format the disk? What else is possible?
The hard drive is in perfect working condition. I used it just a few weeks back when it was on my desktop.
Best Answer
It's possible that your enclosure for your hard drive isn't passing information about the hard drive correctly.
You didn't indicate what product your enclosure was, but I think it was this Rocketfishâ„¢ - 3.5" Serial ATA Hard Drive Enclosure:
In the product description, the enclosure offers two additional USB ports, a memory card reader, and a kind of button that magically takes backups. These aren't standard USB mass storage device features, which means that you might need additional drivers to support this enclosure. (Most proprietary drivers are written for Windows, unfortunately, which doesn't help your Linux-formatted drive.)
Troubleshooting
Determining how the USB device is recognized
We can determine definitively whether Linux can work with this enclosure.
sudo tail -f /var/log/syslog
kernel
" messages with "usb
" following on the same line.Example output:
The above output shows that a "USB Mass Storage device" was detected, meaning that the device could be used as a flash drive, almost exactly like an internal hard drive.
If your output doesn't look like the above, then most likely, you won't be able to interface with the enclosure.
Here's a different example showing a device being recognized as a keyboard:
Determining if the USB device can be used for block storage
If the kernel log shows that you can use the Rocketfish enclosure as a storage device, then follow these steps:
cat /proc/partitions
cat /proc/partitions
If the USB device was recognized as block storage, then you will see at least one new line added to the output from
cat /proc/partitions
.If not, then unfortunately, the kernel doesn't support your Rocketfish device, and my only recommendation for you left would be to get a new, simpler enclosure that doesn't have any extra fancy features.
If the enclosure is recognized as a block device...
There might be some hope, but I wouldn't recommend trying to interface with the drive through the Rocketfish enclosure because the enclosure is returning data about the hard drive in an unusual way that could lead to data corruption if you try to use it.