Recovering data from external hard disk error

data-recovery

I am trying to recover a hard disk. The external hard disk is recognised, and the Disks software in Ubuntu that the disk is OK, but has one bad sector. Is it possible to recover the data? I tried testdisk and photorec as suggested by some solutions, but they report the recovery depends on the correct size of the hard disk

gparted

Error: /dev/sdb: unrecognised disk label
Model: ST1000LM 035-1RK172 (scsi)                                         
Disk /dev/sdb: -512.00B
Ssector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: unknown
Disk Flags:

I guess, none of the recovery software is working because the size reported is wrong. I am attaching a screen shot of the Disk utility.

enter image description here

When I try to ddrescue, then the error is

sudo ddrescue /dev/sdb /home/user/copy.img
ddrescue: Input file is not seekable.

The objective is to recover photos from the hard disk.

Best Answer

This looks like more than just a bad sector if even an advanced tool like ddrescue doesn't work... I've used ddrescue to successfully recover disks with multiple bad sectors.

It looks like this disk is not recognized by the OS as it looks like an 18 Exabyte disk to disks, a -512 byte drive to parted, ... so you're down to hardware recovery (Slightly off-topic here but on-topic here ):

  1. Remove the drive from the external enclosure and hook it up straight to the SATA port of your computer and see if it gets recognised now.
  2. If you're on a laptop with only one SATA port, boot Ubuntu from a live USB and hook it up to the only port you have.
  3. If that doesn't work, try a PCB from an identical drive and try hooking it up again
  4. If that fails, you need professional data recovery:
    • Expensive!
    • Slow (you need to send the drive in)
    • they recover what they can regardless of pictures or not and charge by he amount of recovered data.
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