Back up drive, dont see it, cant not access it

[Runfox]

My wifes computer, back up drive suddenly not seen in my computer, removed drive and plugged into external case, drive spins, but can not access, win 7 64 bit want to format it. Im guessing a bad boot sector? Anyone have suggestions for a SATA HD recovery tools? The disk was formatted with windows 7 64 bit.

 

[carnageX]

FIrstly, I'd suggest booting off of a Linux LiveCD (such as Ubuntu) and see if you can access the drive that way. I've had much better luck accessing / recovering data off of a drive that's going out over Linux than through Windows.

If it ends up being that the partition tables are screwed up and the data is still there...then that's really easy to fix. You can download a GParted LiveCD, boot off of that, and then use the TestDisk application that comes with it. Guide here: TestDisk Step By Step - CGSecurity

 

[Runfox]

OK Carnage, Im not techie enough!!. I tried GParted and did not find any testdisk that came with it. I made a live CD of unbuntu, actually Xbuntu, with a graphics interface. I installed the problem SATA drive on my computer beforehand, and booting up with Unbuntu, did one time see the named drive, but could not access the files

Now my problem is getting test disk working in Unbuntu. I downloaded and extracted testdisk on my main drive, but can not seam to access it in Unbuntu. I pulled up a browser in Unbuntu, and downloaded and extracted the DOS/WIN 9X version , but all I get when trying to run Test Disk, in Unbuntu, is an error in the archive!

 

[carnageX]

OK Carnage, Im not techie enough!!. I tried GParted and did not find any testdisk that came with it. I made a live CD of unbuntu, actually Xbuntu, with a graphics interface. I installed the problem SATA drive on my computer beforehand, and booting up with Unbuntu, did one time see the named drive, but could not access the files

Did it give any errors or messages? Or was the drive just blank?

Now my problem is getting test disk working in Unbuntu. I downloaded and extracted testdisk on my main drive, but can not seam to access it in Unbuntu. I pulled up a browser in Unbuntu, and downloaded and extracted the DOS/WIN 9X version , but all I get when trying to run Test Disk, in Unbuntu, is an error in the archive!

Don't get too ahead of yourself now. Whether or not you actually need to use Testdisk is still a question. Did GParted still recognize that there was a partition (or partitions) there? Or did it think it was empty?

If it looked empty, then testdisk should be used.

As for using it...you're trying to run a Windows executable in a Linux environment - that won't work. If you boot back into Gparted, you should be able to run a Terminal (Linux equivalent of Command Prompt from Windows), and try typing in "testdisk" to see if it runs.

 

[Runfox]

When in Unbuntu, it saw the drive E:, but it was blank. Ok will try Gparted again to see if I see the drive at all and if its blank Ill try the test disk from cmd pronmpt

 

[Runfox]

OK in Gparted I see the drive, but no files, ran test disk successfully, first time found partitions, but also error in number of sectors found vs sectors on disk, after deeper search found NTFS files but both were D= deleted. Tried P= page but found nothing, after second try test disk now can not find anyhting, so I guess my boot sector is deleted. Not good, Im sure the data must be recoverable. I have to get this data back as this is my wifes back up drive, she is not happy at all right now.