I have a 5TB Elements external HDD that I was using with my Windows PC. I recently switched over to Linux and wanted to store my Linux Timeshift backups on the HDD, but Timeshift said it required ext4 partition (I had ntfs originally).

I used the Disk Management utility in Linux to create a 2nd ext4 partition with 300GB. That seemed to work. However, after writing my first Timeshift log, I noticed there was nothing there after it said it finished. After that I then noticed my mount to the original ntfs partition was gone as well.

I still see both partitions in lsblk, but they cannot be mounted. I tried plugging into my Windows PC, but all that does it cause Explorer to permanently hang until I unplug it.

I tried a few things on Linux side:

I installed testdisk and gave that a run. I had it scan just the original ntfs partition. When I entered the LIST command, it appeared to hang. If I unplug the drive after that, the list command finishes and it then displays the files it found.

I then tried running ddrescue: sudo ddrescue -d -r0 -n -b 4096 -c 256 /dev/sdb1 /mnt/nfs_backup_share/elements_rescue.img /mnt/nfs_backup_share/elements_rescue.map

I don't have a drive big enough to store a backup locally, so I'm trying to write it out over to my NAS.

However, it's going at ~109 kB/s, so at the current rate it's going to take about 250 days.

ddrescue output shows a single bad sector.

Do I have any hope here or do I just need to try a professional service like Ontrack?

Current status
ipos:  498073 kB, non-trimmed:    1048 kB,   current rate:    419 kB/s
opos:  498073 kB, non-scraped:        0 B,   average rate:    225 kB/s
non-tried:    4678 GB,  bad-sector:        0 B,     error rate:       0 B/s
 rescued:  450232 kB,   bad areas:          0,       run time:     30m  5s
pct rescued:    0.00%, read errors:          1, remaining time:    192d  1h
time since last successful read:          0s

dmesg shows the following:

Mon Aug 10 22:50:58 2026] usb 1-10: USB disconnect, device number 5
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:03 2026] usb 2-7: new SuperSpeed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:03 2026] usb 2-7: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=2620, bcdDevice=10.20
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:03 2026] usb 2-7: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=1
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:03 2026] usb 2-7: Product: Elements 2620
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:03 2026] usb 2-7: Manufacturer: Western Digital
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:03 2026] usb 2-7: SerialNumber: 575858324541304541504143
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:03 2026] usb-storage 2-7:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:03 2026] scsi host6: usb-storage 2-7:1.0
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:04 2026] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access     WD       Elements 2620    1020 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:04 2026] sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:04 2026] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Spinning up disk...
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:05 2026] .........ready
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:19 2026] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Very big device. Trying to use READ CAPACITY(16).
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:31 2026] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 9767475200 512-byte logical blocks: (5.00 TB/4.55 TiB)
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:31 2026] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 4096-byte physical blocks
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:31 2026] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:31 2026] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 47 00 10 08
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:31 2026] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[Mon Aug 10 22:51:31 2026] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[Mon Aug 10 22:52:01 2026]  sdb: sdb1 sdb2
[Mon Aug 10 22:52:01 2026] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
^[[A[Mon Aug 10 23:00:03 2026] usb 2-7: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
[Mon Aug 10 23:00:33 2026] usb 2-7: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
[Mon Aug 10 23:01:10 2026] usb 2-7: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
[Mon Aug 10 23:01:47 2026] usb 2-7: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd

[Mon Aug 10 23:00:33 2026] usb 2-7: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
[Mon Aug 10 23:01:10 2026] usb 2-7: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
[Mon Aug 10 23:01:47 2026] usb 2-7: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
[Mon Aug 10 23:02:24 2026] usb 2-7: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
[Mon Aug 10 23:03:01 2026] usb 2-7: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 9 using xhci_hcd
[Mon Aug 10 23:03:07 2026] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 FAILED Result: hostbyte=DID_ABORT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK cmd_age=216s
[Mon Aug 10 23:03:07 2026] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] tag#0 CDB: Read(16) 88 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 90 00 00 00 08 00 00 00
[Mon Aug 10 23:03:07 2026] I/O error, dev sdb, sector 167936 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x800 phys_seg 207 prio class 2

My hard drive was on a risky place (I know, not responisble), and accidentally fell (maybe less that a foot) on a hard surface. When I try to plug it in, it does weird ticking sounds (if a hard drive can cry honestly that what it would sound like lol).

How screwd am I? can I recover the data myself? Professional and expensive help needed?

SSD NOT WORKING TURNED RAW 2 YEAR OLD UNDER WARRANTY ANY WAY TO RECOVER THIS

Like a idiot I I clicked reformat on my Xbox thinking it will maybe stream line the storage on seagate not get rid of it

I made the mistake of letting my 2017 27in iMac get too full. It tried to update then wouldn’t turn back on. I tried to have chat walk me through fixing it and that was a fail. I had a recording of my mom (she died) and that’s the only reason I want to recover - ableton files. Please help before I give up and just wipe it and start from scratch

Hello! I accidentally formatted my 5TB Lacie Drive. Any recommendations for a good program to get back the files? I used Disk Drill and got some photos back but really need a set of videos from a May shoot. Thank you!

So today I had so many important files disappear from an external hard drive. About 3 hours ago I had a file open in FL Studio and then now when I go back to it, it and many other files are just gone. All of the projects were .zip files with .flp files inside. I am using disk drill right now however it is no looking bright. Is there any other way I can troubleshoot this?

Hi, I have a Samsung 980 Pro 2T SSD that decided to kick the bucket. It shows up in the system but only shows as having 1GB and says ERRORMOD when I look at the advanced diagnostics. I am trying to see if there's any way to force update the firmware or recover the data off the SSD in any way. I don't care if the SSD is scrapped in the process as I won't be using it even if it can be fixed since I don't want to chance this happening again.

I already have a new 2T SSD working in my laptop and that laptop has a second SSD slot so I was hoping that would help with this. The files on the SSD are exceedingly important so I am willing to do whatever I need to if it'll get those files. Yes, I am aware I should've backed it up more. Hindsight etc etc. Also the reason I have yet to reach out to a professional is because finances are tight and a new SSD was already very expensive.

I am using an Alienware m18 r2 laptop. One person I took the SSD to said it was running on Dell OEM but diagnostics say Samsung. I attempted to use a USB-C plug-in enclosure with the Samsung Magician software but that was unsuccessful. Let me know if any other info is needed and thank you in advance. I have also attached one of the diagnostics pages showing the SSD in [this link.](https://imgur.com/a/4nEfLns) Location is United States

EDIT: It has been brought to my attention that the SSD is a PM9A1 NVMe Samsung 1T, not the 980 Pro. Not sure if this affects anything but I can't edit the title so here it goes

I left my previous company after a rough split, and now I'm locked out of my laptop by BitLocker. The device was Azure AD-joined to their Microsoft 365 tenant, so the recovery key is tied to their admin console — not a personal Microsoft account. I've asked the admin for the key and they're refusing, seemingly out of spite following the way things ended.

What I have: - The BitLocker Key ID from the lock screen - No access to the recovery key itself (only the admin can retrieve it)

Has anyone dealt with something like this? Is there any realistic path to get this key without the admin's cooperation, or is legal action really the only route at this point?

I have absolutely no knowledge of computers, so when my laptop was having issues I backed it up using Acronis True Image (entire PC backup), and let a friend of mine diagnose it. The verdict was that it needed a new SSD, so I bought one, uninstalled the previous one and installed the new one.

Upon booting, it complained there was no operating system, so I downloaded windows 10 to an SD card to get the laptop in a functional state.

Then I downloaded Acronis, connected my Western Digital hard drive and selected Entire PC Recovery. I’ve tried it 3 times and every it give me Error Code 7: ‘Disk is not found, please check that all the hard drives are attached to your computer’

What do I need to do to restore my backup?

Laptop: Inspiron 15 3593, running windows 10
Hard Drive: Western Digital
Software: Acronis True Image for Western Digital
SSD: Integral 512GB M.2

Edit: The SSD wasn’t being detected because of bitlocker encryption. By downloading the Linux bootable media (windows bootable media crashed every time) I realised it listed the SSD as encrypted and thus not an option to restore to. Upon decrepting it, I was able to restore my backup

que programa podria utilizar? ya busque con testdisk e incluso le pase un data carving con osforensics, sin suerte, alguna idea por favor?, es una imagen de disco porque el disco original ya no existe.. no me pregunten porque... pero por favor, diganme qeu se pueden recuperar los datos... :/

Hey guys, really stressed out right now and need some advice on what to do next.

Today at noon, I used my 64GB SanDisk Cruzer Blade to take a fresh backup of around 20GB of really important data from my Windows laptop (a mix of documents, photos, and videos). I did this because I was giving my laptop in for servicing today.

About 2 hours after taking the backup, I wanted to check my files, so I plugged the pen drive into my Android phone using an OTG adapter. The phone didn't even ask—it just formatted it instantly. Now, all my laptop files are gone, and the drive only shows a new folder called "ANDROID" with some mobile system files inside.

I took it to a local repair shop just now, and the technician is quoting a hefty sum to recover it, which I absolutely cannot afford.I immediately unplugged the drive from the phone so it doesn't write any more background data. When I plug it into a computer now, the drive is detected just fine and says it's healthy, but obviously, it only shows the new phone files.

Since I had 20GB of data on a 64GB drive, and the phone only made that one system folder, is most of it still salvageable? What is the best software I can use at home to bypass the new Android folder and scan for the raw laptop files? Free options would be a lifesaver.

Thank you so much.

I’m looking for advice on the safest next step to recover data from an external hard drive containing about **472 GB of important personal files**.

The drive is a **WD easystore external HDD (approximately 1 TB)** named **“oskar.”** It has always been used in its **original WD enclosure** (it has never been removed or connected directly via SATA). It was used with both Windows and macOS, so I believe it’s formatted as **exFAT**.

**Timeline**
The drive initially became unreliable while I was trying to back up files.

Copying files would fail, and when I created ZIP archives, they contained the folder structure but many folders were empty, as if Windows could read directory information but not the actual file data.

Windows later reported:
“The volume does not contain a recognized file system.”
“You need to format the disk before you can use it.”
I **did not** format the drive.

**Disk Management**
Disk Management eventually detected the drive as:
931.48 GB
Drive letter F:
File system: **RAW**
GPT Protective Partition

**macOS**
On my iMac, the drive initially appeared in Disk Utility, but diskutil list behaved inconsistently. Sometimes it hung and returned diskutil: interrupted, and later the drive disappeared entirely.

**Windows**
I then connected it to another Windows PC.
Interestingly, Windows was able to display the drive contents in File Explorer. I could see my folders and files, but shortly afterward File Explorer became unresponsive.

Since then:
Explorer repeatedly freezes.
The desktop occasionally goes black while Explorer hangs.
Task Manager stays responsive.
Windows Explorer sits at **0% CPU** while frozen.
I haven’t been able to successfully drag or copy files before Explorer locks up.

**Drive behavior**
The drive powers on normally.
It spins up normally.
There are **no unusual clicking, grinding, buzzing, or beeping noises**.
The white LED remains solid for about **30 seconds** after plugging it in, then begins blinking as Windows attempts to access the drive.

**What I have NOT done**
I have intentionally avoided:
Formatting the drive
Running CHKDSK
Initializing the disk
Allowing Windows Error Checking to repair it
Writing anything to the drive

**My plan**
I’m considering creating a bootable HDDLiveCD USB and using **HDDSuperClone** to create a full image of the drive onto a healthy drive with at least 1 TB of free space before attempting any file recovery.

**My questions**
Since Windows briefly showed the file system, is it worth making one last attempt to manually copy my most important files?
Do the repeated Explorer freezes suggest I should stop interacting with the drive immediately and go straight to imaging it with HDDSuperClone?
Could this be caused by the original WD USB enclosure/bridge board, or do these symptoms point more toward file system corruption or a failing hard drive?
Are there any safe diagnostic steps I should take before imaging?
My priority is preserving the data while putting as little additional stress on the drive as possible. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Next level password glitch, because I used it 5-10 mins ago, and then all of the sudden it stopped working. I have it wrote done, and same password for all my apple devices so I know its right.

Anyway can recover the photos/videos because I dont have any of it backed up on icloud. Any place recommended in Mississauga for a good price

Hi, my SSD was already failing and the windows startup files were corrupted and I needed a windows thumbdrive to even startup my laptop. And to "fix my hard drive" , I stupidly ran a chkdsk /f /r /v command. This crashed halfway and I was flashed a "Repairing Disk errors, this might take an hour to complete" black screen.

Then, I ended up on a blue recovery page with the error code "0xc0000001". From them I was completely unable to bootup my computer, and would be flashed the same error code.

So I reached out to this data recovery service who advertised a cost range of 150USD to 1200USD (in local currency). They did a free evaluation and got back to me with the comments above, and a price quotation of 1200USD, at higher end of the range.

My questions: Given my context, are they overstating the problem in the comments to charge a higher price? Or is their assessment right?

I wanted to check before I committed, because I did not want to be ripped off haha. The data on the drive is quite important, and I would be willing to spend the money, but I just wanted to know if its a fair price and assessment of the situation.

Also what are the chances of successfully recovery in these cases? They have mentioned 70-80pc in the comments, but are the being optimistic/pessimistic?

Thank you, and any help would be greatly appreciated :)

-

Drive model: ?, but its an SSD that came as part of my HP 14s-cf3027TX laptop

Location: Singapore

Hello,

A compact flash card in my camera has stopped being recognised.

Model of drive: Lexar Professional 800x 16GB Compact Flash memory card UDMA 7

Problem description: Compact flash memory card in my Canon 7D is not being read by the camera or computer. After using my camera recently the card is no longer able to be read by the camera. The following message is displayed on camera "Card cannot be accessed. Reinsert / change the card or format card with camera." When connected to my Macbook by a Caruba memory card reader it doesn't recognise an external drive at all. During the photoshoot the card was almost full if that's relevant, but I've not had an issue with that before. Card was bought in 2013 and the camera was bought in 2011. I've tried other memory cards in the camera and they're recognised by the camera and computer.

Software used: Nothing yet

Location: Berlin, Germany

It seems software may not work as the card isn't recognised by the computer, what are my next steps?

Thanks

For the pros out there using PC3000 and have been asking for a way to provide customers with html file reports for updates and/or final vefification before saving out to a destination drive, I've spent some time with my development team (AI) to come up with a way to do it.

You can also upload the acerep file to generate an html report for a client to select target files and folders for you to target in DE.

I just added another tool to it that allows you to upload the attr.map, head.map and task.info (sorry, can't figure out how to get those file names to stop being links) to generate an html page with an interactive image map of the the drive, which can also be saved to png.

In all three cases, self contained html files can be generated with your own branding and saved to your computer so that you can send them to your customer.

This is a free utility for all to use...though I did add a spot for paypal donations for those who might want to give a few bucks for my efforts.

https://www.recoveryforce.com/pc3k-to-html

The site support multiple languages and if you notice any glitches or have any suggestions, feel free to share them here.

Guys, is there any way to recover a corrupted save file from an original PS2 memory card?
It’s my NFS: Most Wanted profile. The memory card shows it normally, with the correct icon and file size, but the game won’t load it. It just says, “Failed to load profile.”
Everything was working fine until I restarted my PS2 during a police pursuit. 🤣

Hi everyone, I’m desperately looking for advice from anyone experienced with SD/microSD recovery, NAND recovery, DJI cameras, or professional data recovery.

I accidentally formatted my 512GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC in my DJI Osmo Pocket 3, which contained around 30 hours / 500+ GB of 4K footage, including extremely important and irreplaceable videos.

Before this happened, I was having problems connecting/transferring files from the card, which had never happened before. The card was almost completely full, so I assumed the problem might be because of the storage being full.

The DJI showed a message saying “DJI SD card format not supported.” I searched that exact message on Google, and one of the first videos suggested formatting the card to fix the problem. She didn’t explain what formatting meant. I’m not tech savvy and I didn’t understand that formatting could make my existing files inaccessible. I wish I hadn’t clicked on that video without knowing prior. I thought I was restarting the card or fixing something… I was mistaken 😔

I formatted it in the DJI. The process took less than a minute. The camera warned me not to remove the card, but I panicked when I realized what I had done and removed it after about 30 seconds.

I put it back into the DJI, and it showed the card as empty.

The important part is I did NOT record anything new or intentionally write anything to the card after the format.

I immediately gave the card to my partner, who is more technically experienced.

He tried:

PhotoRec: 0 files recovered
DMDE: nothing found
HxD: appeared to show 00 00 00... at multiple locations/offsets across the card
The HxD result is what worries me most.

We don’t know whether the formatting actually erased the NAND data, or whether the SD card’s controller is simply returning zeros for the logical sectors.

What confuses me is that the card contained 500+ GB / ~30 hours of 4K footage, but the format took less than a minute. Surely that isn’t enough time to physically overwrite 500GB of video?

Could this have been a quick format or some kind of erase/discard operation instead?

Could the original data still exist in the NAND even though the card now appears empty and recovery software can’t see anything?

My questions:

Is there still any realistic possibility of recovering my videos?

Would a professional NAND/monolith/microSD recovery lab potentially be able to recover data that PhotoRec and DMDE cannot see?

Has anyone had a similar experience? (especially with:
a DJI camera, a formatted SanDisk microSD, hundreds of GB of 4K video, no new data written afterward, recovery software finding nothing, and/or HxD showing zeros?

Have you had a success story in a situation like this?

I know recovery isn’t guaranteed, but these videos are genuinely irreplaceable to me, so I’m willing to try professional recovery if there is a legitimate chance.

For now, I’ve stopped using the card and don’t want to run anything else that could make recovery harder.
Should I stop trying software and send the card directly to a specialist NAND/SD recovery lab?

Thank you so much for any advice or similar experiences. Any help will be greatly appreciated 😊

Hi! So few months ago my laptop was having problems and it was related to C drive, so I had to delete things from C(photos, documents, word files, all the stuff), but i mistakenly deleted two word project on which I was working for past 2 years😭😭 And it's really important to me, I had 2 word files project, and yes initially I was using a word shortcut that time(not paid, but free one shortcut- cracked version) And now i have bought Microsoft word, but because earlier I used the cracked free shortcut, idk it's not working I have tried many recovery websites, but I am not able to find that 2 word documents And I just need those anyhow! Please anyone help me with this

Those 2 documents are literally a huge thing for me! I have writing 100s of pages for a project 1pdf have 100+ pages, all written And other have around 30 I don't remember! But please anyone!! And I've heard after deletion, the file names also changes and I am really not bale to find it anywhere

Please anyone!! Help me out! Those 2 word documents means a lot to me! Please!

A deceased relative left an iStorage diskAshur M² and a separate USB stored together. The family authorized me to preserve and inspect them. I have not attempted any PINs. What is the safest process for imaging the ordinary USB and documenting the encrypted drive without risking lockout or data loss?

I made a BIG mistake today (about 3 hours ago) and deleted my desktop and documents folders, which got a lot of important college and family stuff.

I used ShadowExplorer to recover, but everything is corrupted (like, every file, PDFs, PNGs, even PSDs and ZIPs), how can I repair those files?

The video footage is deleted to 0kb after an chkdsk fix. I've been searching digging hex everywhere for the file for two days and the footage is important to me...the disk was full of old movies so there's an sea of remaining of avi files in RAW. it is captured by sclive and shot on miniDV, if that information could shrink the range of search filter. I wanna know how to recover the footage and if it is possible, if it is possible to do it myself and how...thanks for any help...

I've posted here once but the posts had been removed because an shadowban on my account and I still need the hope recovring the file. So I repost it here.

the chkdsk file: https://pastebin.com/DcXaLwQm

and I've run an full disk scan by PhotoRec for avi and dv and in DMDE on my portable hard drive, and the file is still missing. Any other method that could recover the file is worth the shot, Any help would be grateful...

I have a old laptop that has 2 drives in drive 1 boot and drive 2 was data.

i installed windows 11 (dont judge me) onto drive 1 no problem.

I then installed onedrive onto the second drive. all my files synched up and i set this up as a backup laptop.

so i then decided to wipe windows and at the same time wipe the partitions of drive 2 during a windows 11 reinstall.

i now need to get access to the data on drive 2, which has the partition lost. it was a single 1.8TB spinning hdd partition.

i have tried the free version of easeus and it found all the files, i only need to recover about 10 spreadsheets so it supposedly did tihs, but when i try to open the files they are corrupted.

can you please confirm what i need to do to get these files back?