Corrupted 500 GB external hard drive, suspect MBR problem

LastOne · 10-08-2009, 03:54 PM

Greetings all...my first post - thanks for your help!

I have a Macbook Pro, and was using NTFS-3G to access an NTFS formatted external hard drive (500 GB A-Data Nobility NH92, USB-powered). System crashed while data was being access on drive (iTunes). After reboot, drive was visible, but no files on the drive were showing up, but the free space shown corresponds with the data still being on the drive.

I've used Testdisk to attempt to repair the MFT, didn't work. read-only mode chkdsk on a PC was leading toward rewriting the index files to show the entire drive as free space (i.e. forget about the data on the drive), so I stopped with that route.

As a proxy test, I used Testdisk to "rebuild Boot Sector" on a 2 GB USB thumb drive (FAT32) which was exhibiting the same problem, and it worked - found all the files that were on the drive.

2 questions:
1) Do I need to try to use Testdisk to work on the Master Boot Record (MBR) before I start trying to "rebuild Boot Sector" on the drive?

2) When I use Testdisk to go to see the files on the drive (230 GB of files), it seems to just hang. Thinking this is just because it's a large amount of data (it worked on the 2GB thumb drive), I waited overnight for it to try to show them...nothing. Does Testdisk still work to be able to show files for a drive of this size? It does not have a progress bar or percentage read anything helpful for that.

Thanks!

Dogg · 10-15-2009, 03:17 PM

Maybe this sticky in the hard drive forum will answer your question: Have you "lost" a hard drive, partition or files in your computer?

LastOne · 10-16-2009, 06:37 PM

Thanks for the reply..I took a look at the sticky. It's definitely related, and is a good guide for what I would have been doing if I went to "Rebuild BS" in TestDisk.

Since my post, I learned that "Boot Sector" (BS) is actually the same thing as "Master Boot Record" (MBR). They just go by different names sometimes. So my question 1) is irrelevant really.

The bigger problem is that I've since lost the hard drive itself! I actually cannot find it in my things, so I may now be truly SOL.

10-08-2009, 03:54 PM	#1 (permalink)
LastOne Registered User Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 3 OS: Mac OS X 10.5.8	Corrupted 500 GB external hard drive, suspect MBR problem Greetings all...my first post - thanks for your help! I have a Macbook Pro, and was using NTFS-3G to access an NTFS formatted external hard drive (500 GB A-Data Nobility NH92, USB-powered). System crashed while data was being access on drive (iTunes). After reboot, drive was visible, but no files on the drive were showing up, but the free space shown corresponds with the data still being on the drive. I've used Testdisk to attempt to repair the MFT, didn't work. read-only mode chkdsk on a PC was leading toward rewriting the index files to show the entire drive as free space (i.e. forget about the data on the drive), so I stopped with that route. As a proxy test, I used Testdisk to "rebuild Boot Sector" on a 2 GB USB thumb drive (FAT32) which was exhibiting the same problem, and it worked - found all the files that were on the drive. 2 questions: 1) Do I need to try to use Testdisk to work on the Master Boot Record (MBR) before I start trying to "rebuild Boot Sector" on the drive? 2) When I use Testdisk to go to see the files on the drive (230 GB of files), it seems to just hang. Thinking this is just because it's a large amount of data (it worked on the 2GB thumb drive), I waited overnight for it to try to show them...nothing. Does Testdisk still work to be able to show files for a drive of this size? It does not have a progress bar or percentage read anything helpful for that. Thanks!

10-15-2009, 03:17 PM	#2 (permalink)
Dogg Tech Hardware Team Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: St Louis, MO Posts: 2,146 OS: XP sp3	Re: Corrupted 500 GB external hard drive, suspect MBR problem Maybe this sticky in the hard drive forum will answer your question: Have you "lost" a hard drive, partition or files in your computer? __________________ Google is your friend !

10-16-2009, 06:37 PM	#3 (permalink)
LastOne Registered User Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 3 OS: Mac OS X 10.5.8	Re: Corrupted 500 GB external hard drive, suspect MBR problem Thanks for the reply..I took a look at the sticky. It's definitely related, and is a good guide for what I would have been doing if I went to "Rebuild BS" in TestDisk. Since my post, I learned that "Boot Sector" (BS) is actually the same thing as "Master Boot Record" (MBR). They just go by different names sometimes. So my question 1) is irrelevant really. The bigger problem is that I've since lost the hard drive itself! I actually cannot find it in my things, so I may now be truly SOL.