Help... I've lost my book

Trebo58 said:

What live Linux USB would you suggest, and how would I set this up on a Windows 11 system?

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Mint is a good flavour. But you don't "set it up" ... you create a boot USB (using Rufus and the Mint ISO) and boot from the USB. DO NOT INTALL MINT. It runs from the USB and from your device's memory. When finished, shut down Mint, remove the USB and re-boot.

But given your above screenshots of Disk Mngmnt, I doubt whether it'll do any good

An unfortunate salient reminder of the benefits of backup.

EDIT
Is this an external USB connected drive or an internal connected drive?

You will learn how to perform TestDisk partition recovery.

I would have a look with diskgenius free version, just in case it can identify a partition table error or find something under the FILES tab.. Long shot but it is worth a try

It is best to clone or image the entire disk all sectors if important data is involved. But I expect you dont have a big enough spare disk to do that.


You could also try a partition recovery module, which many partition managers include but they are not usually in free versions. I have the last free versions from aomei and minitool.

I might be able to upload boot media with a few recovery programs

Trebo58 said:

As requested, here are the screenshots of Disk Management, as you can see the 5TB drive appears there. the fist partition is E: Storage, the second (middle) was labeled F: Working Files, which is now "Unallocated", and the third is J: which is empty. Both E and J have no issues.
(See attached image: Disk Management-1.png)

I have also attached a screenshot of CrystalDiskInfo_20260915223432.png showing that the drive is not reporting any errors.

XxXxX Thank you for your suggestion... What live Linux USB would you suggest, and how would I set this up on a Windows 11 system? When running this, would I need to remove the main system/OS drive?
Banjoman301 I did check Office 365 back, but it is empty, so I can only assume that I did not have autosave on (This is not looking good)
Kelper, thanks for the suggestion, just don't have the funds to cover such expenditure.

I hope I have replied to all of you who are trying to help me. Sorry if I missed anyone, and I do appreciate all of your efforts

Click to expand...

Ubuntu is about the easiest to make and use
leave all the drives in the computer and just boot from the live Ubuntu USB into the live session

you will need two USB stick drives
one for the live Linux bootable distro and one for the data to be transferred to, if it is accessible

best of luck Steve ..

Hi @Trebo58
A short preamble before I get into your problem.

You are in sitting in your home ground in front of your Desktop. I am In Suwanee, Atlanta Georgia USA on a short visit and not my home ground India, twiddling with an old HP laptop jettisoned by my grandson which my daughter dusted off and gave it to me to play with.This morning when I woke up and switched it on I saw an alert created by Scannerman and that is how I have jumped in here.

Ok, be that what it is, the moment I saw that the disk in question is a 5TB disk. your age and history, I suspected that it could be an Advance Formatted MBR disk and yes it is.
Your disk ST5000NM0084, 1HT17X-039, BB63, TK, Z4D0, SEAGATE SATA 5TB NOV 2014 is an Advance Formatted MBR Disk. https://www.ebay.com/itm/254242535941.

For some reason one partition has become unallocated. The other two partitions/volumes are OK. So what has gone wrong? Well, That partition has lost its file system. The basic principle is that whenever one creates a simple volume a 16 Byte partition table is immediately written into MBR in the 64 Byte space earmarked for the partition tablesMBR can Hve only four Primary Partitions.If it is not formatted it will show as unallocated. Formatting writes the file system into that partition.

So in your case the partition exists but that partition has lost the filesystem. Stop working on Partition Recovery. We should only try restoring the filesystem. We can try to restore the file system using Test Disk.

Just go through this thread only to familiarise with TestDisk. ( The scrrenshots could be different in your case. The reference is only to get familiar with TestDisk. Do not try anything on your own)

3 TB WD External Hard Drive NOT Working [ RAW ] - Windows 10 Help Forums

I have a serious problem. I have TWO 3 TB WD External Hard Drives attached to my Desktop, and until a couple of days ago, they BOTH worked perfectly. One of my 3 TB WD External Hard Drives has stopped working. There is power getting to it [ I also tried a

www.tenforums.com

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If it was only a filesystem issue wouldn't it show as raw ?

SIW2 said:

If it was only a filesystem issue wouldn't it show as raw ?

Click to expand...

More like deleted partition as the Disk Management shows unallocated space not RAW file system.

That is the point I was making.

unallocated



Disk:1
0x80 **************************************************************************************************************************
446#16: 0x80 0x20 0x21 0x00 0x07 0x5E 0x38 0x26 0x00 0x08 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x60 0x09 0x00
462#16: 0x00 0x00 0x08 0x29 0x07 0xFE 0xFF 0xFF 0xF0 0x0C 0x0A 0x00 0x4E 0x2C 0x75 0x09
478#16 0x00 0xFE 0xFF 0xFF 0x07 0xFE 0xFF 0xFF 0x00 0x40 0x7F 0x09 0x00 0x50 0x22 0x09
494#16: 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
510#2: 0x55 0xAA

partition with no filesystem shows as raw



Disk:1
0x80 **************************************************************************************************************************
446#16: 0x80 0x20 0x21 0x00 0x07 0x5E 0x38 0x26 0x00 0x08 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x60 0x09 0x00
462#16: 0x00 0x5E 0x39 0x26 0x0B 0xEB 0x03 0x28 0x00 0x68 0x09 0x00 0x00 0xA0 0x00 0x00
478#16 0x00 0x00 0x08 0x29 0x07 0xFE 0xFF 0xFF 0xF0 0x0C 0x0A 0x00 0x4E 0x2C 0x75 0x09
494#16: 0x00 0xFE 0xFF 0xFF 0x07 0xFE 0xFF 0xFF 0x00 0x40 0x7F 0x09 0x00 0x50 0x22 0x09
510#2: 0x55 0xAA


if anybody is interested efi protective mbr
Disk:0
0x80 **************************************************************************************************************************
446#16: 0x00 0x00 0x02 0x00 0xEE 0xFF 0xFF 0xFF 0x01 0x00 0x00 0x00 0xFF 0xFF 0xFF 0xFF
462#16: 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
478#16 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
494#16: 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00
510#2: 0x55 0xAA

A professional data recovery company would be your absolute best option, but they charge from $300 up to into the thousands (dependent on how much data there is to recover). Most reputable companies charge an upfront evaluation fee to determine if the data is recoverable. If the data is recoverable and the user chooses to do so, that fee is knocked off of the total recovery fee.

glasskuter said:

A professional data recovery company would be your absolute best option, but they charge from $300 up to into the thousands (dependent on how much data there is to recover).

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lol, I asked for a quote from such company once. 800€ for them to just receive the drive and take a look. No recovery yet though...quesstimate was beyond 5000€ to save as much data as possible, based on my description of the issue.

...yeah, these guys can recover plenty of data from a drive even if it has been in a fire.

Thank you, Jumanji, for your help. I will await your instructions... And thanks to everyone else who have offered suggestions

@Trebo58

Taking into consideration the views expressed by FreeBooter and SIW2 and leave nothing to chance, we shall run Partition Recovery Wizard and check what Partitions it shows.( I may be wrong in hastily deciding it may not be a lost Partition )

Download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard Free v9.1 from Download MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition 9.1 for windows - Filepuma.com

Launch PW9.1, if it offers to download a later version say No and dismiss the popup. ( In later versions Partition Recovery is not free)

Click on Partition Recovery Wzard in the left panel > Next> Select your 5TB disk >Next>Full Disk > Next >Full Scan > Next . When the full scan completes you will see a window "Choose searched Partitions".
Does the second Partition show as Existing or deleted?
Whether it shows as existing or deleted, double click on it and check whether it shows all your files.. For the record take a screenshot and post.
If it shows all your files put a check mark on all the partition sqaures .The disk map at the bottom should show all the three partitions.Click on Finish, and You have restored the partition tables of all the three Partitions. Exit PW. Reboot. and check whether you can access the second partition.

There has been atleast one case in which Partition Recovery Wizard showed all the files. Yet File explorer did not show.

Trebo58 said:

As requested, here are the screenshots of Disk Management, as you can see the 5TB drive appears there. the fist partition is E: Storage, the second (middle) was labeled F: Working Files, which is now "Unallocated", and the third is J: which is empty. Both E and J have no issues.
(See attached image: Disk Management-1.png)

I have also attached a screenshot of CrystalDiskInfo_20260915223432.png showing that the drive is not reporting any errors.

XxXxX Thank you for your suggestion... What live Linux USB would you suggest, and how would I set this up on a Windows 11 system? When running this, would I need to remove the main system/OS drive?
Banjoman301 I did check Office 365 back, but it is empty, so I can only assume that I did not have autosave on (This is not looking good)
Kelper, thanks for the suggestion, just don't have the funds to cover such expenditure.

I hope I have replied to all of you who are trying to help me. Sorry if I missed anyone, and I do appreciate all of your efforts

Click to expand...

Okay, so I've waited long enough for others to offer their two cents. First of all, XxXxX is correct in every way about checking to see if the data is still there. If that is the way you choose to go then I will defer to XxXxX and leave off posting as I know Steve provides solid guidance. That said if you simply want your data back and want it back asap then again I would refer you to MiniTool Partition Wizard as it will likely be the best candidate for retrieving your lost files even if you don't manage to save your partition.

There are dozens of apps that were designed to rescue lost partitions but I have found MiniTool to be the leader among them. You will of course need a separate disk to write the partition to once Minitool finds the lost partition and it very, very likely will. Now I am guessing that your 5TB drive is an external hard drive, likely one of those WD My Books or something to that affect. Should this be the case then what you are experiencing is not uncommon with this genre of hard drives. It is an old problem and the "fix" for it is dubious. Personally, I dealt with it by eliminating the partitions altogether after they disappeared yet a second time following the said "fix". (That drive is no longer with us.) But I digress. You want to recover your data.

Purchasing a lifetime license from MiniTool will save you a lifetime of misery with that hard drive and others like it. MiniTool also provides tutorials on various ways of recovering your data. You will have to decide just how much your data is worth to you. MiniTool will pay for itself over and over again and costs a fraction of what you would pay to send your hard drive out to a data recovery centre.

There are other ways to recover data and I won't rule them out but this is one of the safest, economical, and most reliable ways I know of.

jumanji said:

@Trebo58

Taking into consideration the views expressed by FreeBooter and SIW2 and leave nothing to chance, we shall run Partition Recovery Wizard and check what Partitions it shows.( I may be wrong in hastily deciding it may not be a lost Partition )

Download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard Free v9.1 from Download MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition 9.1 for windows - Filepuma.com

Launch PW9.1, if it offers to download a later version say No and dismiss the popup. ( In later versions Partition Recovery is not free)

Click on Partition Recovery Wzard in the left panel > Next> Select your 5TB disk >Next>Full Disk > Next >Full Scan > Next . When the full scan completes you will see a window "Choose searched Partitions".
Does the second Partition show as Existing or deleted?
Whether it shows as existing or deleted, double click on it and check whether it shows all your files.. For the record take a screenshot and post.
If it shows all your files put a check mark on all the partition sqaures .The disk map at the bottom should show all the three partitions.Click on Finish, and You have restored the partition tables of all the three Partitions. Exit PW. Reboot. and check whether you can access the second partition.

There has been atleast one case in which Partition Recovery Wizard showed all the files. Yet File explorer did not show.

Click to expand...

I apologize, Jumanji. I didn't see your post until after which I already made mine, but I see that we are on the same page.

FreeBooter said:

More like deleted partition as the Disk Management shows unallocated space not RAW file system.

Click to expand...

In either case the file system is lost. Unfortunately, in this case it would appear that a whole lot more is lost. MiniTool can recover this also.