External Hard Drive suddenly showing as unallocated space

Hello,
I have a Seagate 500GB Free Agent Desktop USB ST305004FDA1E1-RK, P/N 9NF2AL-570 that I was using to store my Acronis true image backups on of an older desktop pc. I had been having issues that the older desktop pc and wound up just doing a clean install and I was going to use my image backup from a few months ago to restore the pc to that time (only because I forgot about my image backup before doing the clean install).

I plugged the Seagate Free Agent External Hard Drive it into that pc the other day to restore it to one of those backups; it was recognized by the pc so I put the rescue / boot disc into the cd drive and restarted the pc. On restart It did show the screen for starting true image and then another screen popped up and vanished just as quickly and Windows XP Pro started instead. So I tried 3 more times with the same results. I then created another bootable rescue media disc and tried to load the TrueImage program but it again showed the True Image screen and then booted to Windows XP instead. It was late by then so I just shut down the computer and turned everything off and thought that I would try again the next day.

The following afternoon when I turned the computer on the Seagate is no longer being recognized by the computer. I tried plugging it into my laptop with the same results. It is listed in device manager and if I go to My Computer and right click for manage and click on disk management it is being shown but as unallocated space now. I can click to safely remove hardware and it is showing up there as well but I cannot access the backups that are on that drive now and it is not being shown in My Computer at all. I simply am not sure what to do now – between the darn external hard drive only showing up as unallocated space in Disk Management and the Acronis True Image 2011 not booting properly with the rescue disk (but right now I am not concerned with that issue). I have no idea why the Seagate Free Agent external hard drive was recognized by and could be read in both pcs the night before and now it I cannot.

If I right click on the drive which now states unallocated space there is the option for New Simple Volume and when I click on properties it states that the device is working properly. I'm guessing that if I click for New Simple Volume that any information on that drive (if it is possible to recover it) will be gone forever – only guessing about that.

I also tried looking for updated drivers and the drivers are up to date, then I tried uninstalling the drivers for it and them the pc - the icon on the bottom that drivers were being installed did come up but it still cannot be seen in My Computer and is still in the same location in Disk Management. I also tried going to device manager and it is listed there and there are no exclamation marks next to it. I did try "scan for hardware changes" that did nothing and I also tried clicking uninstall and then scan for hardware changes with the same results. I have also tried different cables, different usb ports, shutting down the computer and unplugging the external hard drive – then turning pc back on and plugging the external hard drive back in but none of that has resolved the issue either.

I did find some software for recovering files but haven’t done anything yet. Right now I am just trying to recover / get the information that was on that external hard drive if at all possible. The computer that I am going to plug this external into is a Gateway Laptop running Vista Home Premium (in case you need to know that as well). I have also attached files showing the views of the drive in Disk Management and the properties for that external hard drive.

Any suggestions on (recovering) getting the information and backups off of that Seagate Free Agent external hard drive?

Thanks So Very Much

 

Sorry - I couldn't upload the pictures to this post/thread (telling me that they were already uploaded to the other thread) Even tried renaming the files but it would not let me upload them to this thread. They can be seen here...http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=282537

 

Only thing I can think of is... If it was removed without doing the "Eject/Safely remove hardware" option, with bigger drives like that, you can risk corrupting it and causing this type of thing.

Someone else might have an idea for ya, but that is all I got.

 

Thanks for the thought but that is the one thing that I make sure to do at all times no matter what (flash drive or external hard drives) for exactly that reason. The odd thing is that it was fine the night before and I just shut the pc down (which I have done in the past as well) and left it plugged into the computer since I was going to use it first thing the next day.

Have started looking into some different software programs that claim to be able to recover files from drives that have crashed, been formatted, reformatted, dead, erased or other problems but haven't decided on which one to try. Still doing some research.

Thanks Again!

 

I had almost the same thing happen with my Seagate 320GB external drive with WinXP. So I took the drive over to my PC running Win7, plugged it in and Win7 said it would repair the drive. All better now.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't get anything like that when I plugged it into my vista pc and I don't have one running windows 7 (and don't know of anyone that has one to ask them to try that for me). Thanks Anyway, I really do appreciate the suggestion.

 

I did some googling and found some similar stories on various forums. Several mentioned the need for "initializing" the unallocated space but not on disks that contain partitions. I think you need to try and recover/repair the existing partitions on the drive. For that I suggest MiniTools Partition Wizard because it allows you to not only recover lost partitions but also initialize the partitions (should that be needed). You can download it here:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/minitool_partition_wizard_home_edition.html

The app has an easy to follow help file that provides step by step directions on how to perform all the various partition operations it is capable of. Here's an example:

"Partition Recovery could help you to recover your lost or deleted partitions. You can start this function by click the Partition Recovery in the menu Disk. You can also use this function from the MiniTool Partition Wizard in the menu Wizard or Partition Recovery in Operations group of the Action Panel.
The application of this function should be carried out like this:

• Select the disk you would like to operate.
• Set the scanning scope of the disk, MiniTool Partition Wizard can search the lost partition in the defined scope
• Set the scanning method : quick scan or full scan
  • Quick scan After finding a partition, MiniTool Partition Wizard will jump over this partition scope and continue to searching the other lost partition from the end of partition that found.
  • Full scan, MiniTool Partition Wizard will give a scanning of all sectors in the chosen area.
• After the scanning, select the partitions you need from the list. Here, you should not only select the lost partitions but also the complete present partitions, and then click the button Finish. MiniTool Partition Wizard will rebuild partition table for the chosen partition."

 

Thanks for the suggestion!

I had already started trying a program called Puran File Recovery before I checked back here and it did take a long time to run the Full and Deep scans on that drive (without doing any sort of formatting of the external drive). I am guessing that it took so long to run because it is a 500GB hard drive and I am running it on a computer that only has 512mb of RAM and moves like molasses to begin with.

Anyway, it did find a ton of files and when you select to recover it gives you a couple of options for how to recover the files so right now I have it recovering the files to the original format on another external hard drive.

When it showed me the files they weren't in the format that I would recognize as being my backups but I will have to let you know when the process is done if it did in fact restore everything that was on that drive to the original formats. It will probably take a few more hours since I left the program running overnight last night to run the full and deep scan (after running for about 3 hours it was only halfway done). So I am guessing that it might take another 3+ hours to run the "restore to original format" and put it onto the new external hard drive.

It was as easy to run as that video I found for this program showed it to be. The real test will be to see if in fact it does restore everything that was on that drive to the original format.

Will be back in touch later on this afternoon or evening.

Lisa

 

The nice thing about that type of file recovery program (Puran) is that it doesn't destroy any data, so if it doesn't work out to your satisfaction, we can still attempt to recover the partitions using the tool I suggested (or one like it).

 

Guessing that it is going to be awhile before I know if that program actually worked but just like you said Puran File Recovery doesn't destroy any data which is the main reason I figured I would try that one first - in hopes that the information on that drive could in fact be recovered. The program still has awhile to go (going by the progress bar at the bottom) - and I know that there were some older image backups for my laptop on there as well as that desktop pc and some other (non-image) backups as well.

Will let you know how it went and whether or not I need to try something else once that program is done.

Thanks Again!

 

well the Puran File Recovery did find tons and tons of files but when I clicked to select recover with file structure all that did was to put all of the .rar files in one folder, .cab in another folder, and the same for all of the other files (.jpg .doc .avi .pdf .ppd .rtf .xls .dng .zip .mpg and so on) it did not put them back into the .tib format that the backups are made in with Acronis True Image.

I think that I also had a copy of the SP2 and SP3 on that drive as well (but can't be sure) and those end in .exe and there were no folders for .exe files. But I am not positive that I did keep a copy of those service packs on that drive since I did burn them to a disc.

There are 2 other options for recovery - one is just recover and the other is recover with custom size and that one. There is also an option for scan custom list and I can enter the information of the name of the file and extension tib but it also wants starting bytes; offset bytes (also have to select either hex; ascii; none) and I have no clue about starting bytes and offset bytes to even try and have it scan for the .tib files on that drive. There is also an option for scanning for lost files but it wants that same information as well.

Guess it doesn't work for trying to recover backups made with acronis true image. Oh well! Guess I can't recover the actual backups.

Lisa

 

I have been doing some searching and have found a post at the acronis website regarding someone who was trying to find some sort of data recovery to get their .tib files. They first need to acquire the .tib files from the otherwise inaccessible hard drive with a 3rd party tool and then I can begin to work with it in Acronis. (which is what I am trying to do)

The forum page was http://forum.acronis.com/forum/35848 and even though the situation is not the same in the end what acronis said was that "You may not be successful in restoring/recovering the files from the formatted / erased disk. Acronis .tib files are very intolerant to any changes in the file. Even a single bit that has changed will cause the .tib file to no longer work as expected.

Unless you pay to have the data recovered professionally. or buy a software product that can do a better job of recovering your data http://www.krollontrack.com/data-recovery/recovery-software from the formatted drive, you may be out of luck getting these .tib files back in good working condition."

So I am guessing that even though that was from back in 2012 I am not going to be able to recover those .tib files

Oh Well, I guess I spent all day doing the Puran File Recovery and then recovering the files to another external hard drive for nothing! I might as well just create a new simple volume on that drive and then run a hard drive test to make sure the hard drive is good before I use it again. There were not partitions on that external hard drive initially so I am not worried about creating any now - just making sure that there are no other issues with that hard drive before I use it for anything.

The Puran File Recovery really was easy to use and understand for basic file recovery (would have gone a lot faster had I used my laptop running Vista instead of that old desktop with just 512MB of RAM) - just not for recovering .tib files

Thanks Again!

Lisa

 

Here's what I suggest we do. You download a special boot CD that will allow access to the non-functioning drive in a pre-Windows recovery environment. From there we can simply copy the entire contents of the drive to another drive. We haven't already discussed this have we? I'm sorry but I had a TBI (traumatic brain injury) about 15 years ago and it left me with atrocious short term memory. I have to jot everything down in a notebook that I carry with me at all times. Unfortunately, both my bookkeeping skills and my handwriting suck. So please bear with me. I know I just went through the following procedure with someone. I hope it wasn't you. In any case, you can download an ISO image of Ultimate Boot CD using the following link:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/ultimate_boot_cd_(ubcd).html

It's a big download (>500 MB). Just save the ISO file somewhere on your hard drive. Then you'll need a CD burning app to burn the ISO to CD. You can download CDBurnerXP from the following link:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/cdburnerxp.html

1. Connect external HDD to broken computer
2. Install CDBurnerXP to your working computer.
3. Place a CD in the optical drive of the computer on which you downloaded the ISO file.
4. Next, open CDBurnerXP and highlight the "Burn ISO Image" box (fourth from the top).
5. Then click on the "Open" button in the lower left corner and browse to where you saved the ISO file.
6. When you open it you will be presented with a new screen with some options. You should be able to just use the program default settings but make sure that the following checkboxes are checked: "Finalize disk" and "Verify data after burning"
7. Now click the "Burn Disk" button and the ISO will be burned to CD. It may take 5 to 10 minutes.
8. When finished, eject the CD and place it in the optical drive of your broken computer and cycle power to start it booting. It should boot directly into the Ultimate Boot CD environment but you may need to press a key if you see a message that says "Press any key to boot from CD".
9. You'll be presented with a menu of choices. Use the arrow key to highlight the item "Start Parted Magic" (approx) and hit [Enter].
10. You will then be presented with another menu. Scroll to the item "Copy files to RAM" (approx) and hit [Enter].
11. After about a minute the Windows-like Linux desktop will appear.
12. You then need to do something with the computer clock. Check "Sync Time with Internet" and hit OK.
13. Now open the file manager (upper left desktop icon) and size it cover the right half of the desktop.
14. Open another instance of file manager and size it to cover the left half of the screen.
15. Now use one file manager to browse to the target hard drive.
16. Use the other to browse to your broken drive.
17. Either copy and paste or drag and drop the Acronis *.tib file to the target hard drive. You can copy files, folder, or the entire drive if you want.
18. Remove Ultimate Boot CD from tray and replace it with the Acronis TrueImage boot CD.
19. Cycle power on the broken computer to begin booting into the Acronis Restore environment.
20. Initiate a restore operation and when asked for backup source, navigate to the *.tib file on the external HDD.
21. Overwrite broken computer hard drive with the Acronis disk image.
22. Remove CD and reboot.

If all goes well, your broken computer should now boot Windows. I'll be up for a couple more hours so go ahead and ask questions if you run into any snags.

Good Luck !

 

:tasSonofab#%*!
I got you mixed up with someone in a different thread. Sorry. I'm going to have to read this thread again from the beginning and come up with a new plan. My brain needs a CPU upgrade.

 

OK, Whew... over 100 posts. You're a real trooper for hanging in there. Anyway, let me see if I have this correct. You have a laptop that was malfunctioning so you did a full restore, hoping to then replace it's content using an Acronis TrueImage disk image stored on an external HDD. However, the laptop wouldn't correctly boot the Acronis boot restore disk. Additionally, the external drive then failed to be recognized by the laptop as well as your second PC. You attempted to retrieve the *.tib file using Puran file recovery program but that failed. And that's where we now stand. Is that correct?

Well, assuming that I'm correct, I suggest we try the following:

1. Download a Linux distribution called Puppy Linux
2. Burn Puppy to CD using CDBurnerXP to create a bootable Linux OS
3. Boot Puppy OS from CD drive of second PC
4. Attach external HDD to second PC
5. See if external HDD is recognized and readable by second PC
6. If so, copy *.tib disk image to second PC
7. Reformat and repartition external HDD
8. Copy *.tib disk image back to external HDD
9. Connect external HDD to laptop
10. Boot laptop using Acronis boot CD
11. Write disk image from external HDD to laptop
12. If needed, reformat laptop and do "bare metal" restore using Acronis disk image

It seems like a long shot but we really have nothing to lose. What do you think?

 

Hello Again,

I think that you are the real trooper for putting up with me for all this time.

Between you with TBI and me with ADHD we are a Great Pair! I need to jot everything down as well and even then I don't always do it as soon as it happens and I have to try and remember in what order things happened - let alone jotting everything that appears on the screen as it happens since sometimes things happen so quickly.

Okay, here goes....
1) I had an old desktop that had been upgraded from Windows ME to Windows XP Professional back around 2007. I had replaced the hard drive in it back in 2011 as well as the RAM and reinstalled Windows XP Professional on it and was just keeping it as a backup pc and have been using my laptop running Vista Home Premium.

2) I would just turn that old desktop on about once a month to get the updates from MS and for the anti-virus, firewall and some other software.
I had turned that old desktop on and did some of the updates - all went well, did a few scans (all came back clean) and I turned the computer off that night. The next day when I turned it back on to get the rest of the updates all I got was the HP screen and then nothing. I tried accessing safe mode but it would just stop at MUP.sys. I then did some research and found information "the standard 1st attempt boot fixing procedure" that I found at http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=195478) but that did not help either (that was a different thread titled PC will not load/boot??? http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=282537&page=5

3) After multiple attempts to get the desktop up and running again I ended up doing a clean install of Windows XP on that desktop (only to then remember that I had a couple of Acronis True Image backups on an external hard drive). So in an attempt to restore the desktop with one of those backups instead of having to go through the whole thing or setting up the desktop the way it was and getting all of the updates (to that point) I plugged the external into the old desktop to make sure it did recognize the drive and then put the acronis rescue disk/media into the cd drive and restarted the pc to attempt to install the backup. However, the pc would show the acronis disk for a second and then just start Windows XP. (thread at http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=282537&page=2 )

4) The next day when I tried again the external drive was no longer being recognized by the desktop (nor could it be recognized by my laptop - which it was able to do the day before). I could no longer see the Seagate Free Agent in My Computer but I could see it in safely remove hardware and in Disk Management is was not being shown as unallocated space in the bottom section of Disk management (which is when it was decided to start a new thread to see if it was possible to retrieve those back-ups instead of just formatting the Seagate Free Agent External Hard Drive and loosing those backups)

That is when this thread was started.

5) I tried running the Puran File Recovery Program to see if those files / backups could be recovered.

6) Puran was in fact able to recover everything on that external hard drive but none of them were in the .tib format which is what the acronis backup are. I selected to recover the files with the file structure format all that did was to put all of the .rar files in one folder, .cab in another folder, and the same for all of the other files (.jpg .doc .avi .pdf .ppd .rtf .xls .dng .zip .mpg and so on) it did not put them back into the .tib format that the backups are made in with Acronis True Image.

7) I did some searching regarding the .tib format and came across a post at acronis from someone who had been trying to recover their .tib backups from a failing or inaccessible hard drive only to find out that according to Acronis that "You may not be successful in restoring/recovering the files from the formatted / erased disk. Acronis .tib files are very intolerant to any changes in the file. Even a single bit that has changed will cause the .tib file to no longer work as expected. Unless you pay to have the data recovered professionally. or buy a software product that can do a better job of recovering your data http://www.krollontrack.com/data-rec...overy-software from the formatted drive, you may be out of luck getting these .tib files back in good working condition."

That was what my last post was last night after trying Puran File Recovery and finding out that I was not able to recover the files in the .tib format and most likely won't. So I was just figuring that I might as well forget it and just reformat that drive, run tests to make sure it was still a good external hard drive and leave it at that.

Now....
from what I think I understand from you, the suggestion is to
Well, assuming that I'm correct, I suggest we try the following:

Download a Linux distribution called Puppy Linux (can do)

Burn Puppy to CD using CDBurnerXP to create a bootable Linux OS (can do)

Boot Puppy OS from CD drive of second PC
You want me to boot this Puppy disc I just made on which pc? - the desktop is now up and running just fine now and runs Windows XP PRO with 512MB RAM and the laptop is running Vista Home Premium

Attach external HDD to second PC
plug the Seagate into the pc that I booted the Puppy disc on - which I will do when I know what pc (if it even matters) I am going to do this on.

See if external HDD is recognized and readable by second PC
If so, copy *.tib disk image to second PC
If I can read the .tib backups using the Puppy OS to copy them to another external hard drive or just to copy them to the internal hard drive of that pc? The .tib file is only about 7GB in size and I do have about 200GB of free space on the XP / desktop machine and more on the laptop

Reformat and repartition external HDD no problem

Copy *.tib disk image back to external HDD no problem

Connect external HDD to laptop
why the laptop since it is the desktop that I am trying to restore the backup with

Boot laptop using Acronis boot CD
shouldn't I be doing this on the desktop with Windows XP since that is what the backup was made on and and the backup is of Windows XP Professional not Vista Home Premium

Write disk image from external HDD to laptop

If needed, reformat laptop and do "bare metal" restore using Acronis disk image

It seems like a long shot but we really have nothing to lose. What do you think?

Will find and download the Puppy Linux program and burn it to a CD and will wait before doing anything else until I hear back from you about my questions.

Thanks Again,

Lisa

Just did a search for Puppy Linux and found this...
http://puppylinux.org/main/Download Latest Release.htm apparently the latest release is Slacko Puppy????

clicked on how to download and found
http://puppylinux.org/main/How to download Puppy.htm
CURRENT RELEASES: Slacko Puppy 5.5 (Slackware 14-compatible) is the latest release. You will also find Lucid Puppy 5.2.8 (Ubuntu Lucid-Compatible, version 5.2.8) in the download page. For Long-Term-Supported release, get Precise Puppy. For much older PCs, Wary Puppy is available.

The Puppy Linux files are primarily hosted by ibiblio.org and its mirror nluug.nl, with these links:

Then I clicked on How not to install Puppy Linux http://puppylinux.org/main/How NOT to install Puppy.htm

Just want to make sure I am downloading the right program and burning it to a disc.

Lisa

 

Wow, that was a great synopsis of this case. From reading your post I realize that I had some of the facts wrong, which is good because it will simplify the proposed recovery process. I thought that your desktop still had problems booting Windows. First, here's the link to download Lucid Puppy v5.2.8 which is the one I have.

http://www.winhelp.us/recover-files-using-puppy-linux.html

And here's the revised plan:

1. Download a Linux distribution called Puppy Linux
2. Burn Puppy to CD using CDBurnerXP to create a bootable Linux OS
3. Boot Puppy OS from CD drive of desktop PC
4. Attach external HDD to desktop PC
5. See if external HDD is recognized and readable by desktop PC while running Puppy Linux
6. If so, simply copy *.tib disk image file to desktop PC
7. Run TrueImage on desktop PC and mount *.tib file to ensure it is intact.
8. If *.tib file is corrupt --> game over
9. If *.tib file is intact, restart desktop PC using Acronis boot disk
10. If desktop PC loads TrueImage CD, use TrueImage program to write *.tib disk image to desktop PC hard drive. And we would be done except for optionally reformatting external HDD partition so it would be recognized by both computers.
11. If desktop PC does not load TrueImage CD (skips over it and loads XP) then we change the BIOS boot order so that CD is first on the list, thereby forcing PC to load Acronis from CD.
12. Restore desktop PC using Acronis disk image (*.tib)
13. If desktop PC still skips over CD and loads Windows, we reformat the partition containing Windows
14. Restore desktop PC by doing a "bare metal" restore using Acronis disk image (*.tib)

Does that make sense to you? We don't need to do anything with the laptop.

 

Shoot, I'm assuming that your desktop PC has a second partition where we can store the *.tib file. Do you know if your PC hard drive has an additional partition (more than one drive letter for the HDD)? If not, we can still do this but we'll need use the external HDD to store the *.tib (after we reformat it's partition so as to be recognized by desktop PC)

 

Hello Again,

Okay I have started downloading that puppy .iso file. I never partitioned the hard drive in either the desktop running Windows XP or my laptop running Vista Home Premium. There never was a partition (originally) on the hard drive in the desktop and the Vista does have a Partition 1 with the c drive on it and a smaller partition labeled D:Recovery.

I guess that I could add a partition to the Windows XP internal hard drive since it is a 250 gb hard drive and has lots of room and is only really kept around in case of an emergency. I have plenty of usb ports on that desktop since that was another upgrade I did to that pc and it actually did come with 2 in the front and 3 in the back to begin with and now I am pretty sure that there are a total of the 2 in the front and 6 in the back.

I could just plug another external hard drive into one of the usb ports and copy the .tib file to that (which is what I did with the files that were found using puran file recovery) it that will work.

Lisa

 

Great, I didn't know that you had another external HDD. We'll just park the *.tib file there when we recover it. Once you get the Linux Puppy CD burned, put it in your desktop CD drive, plug in the external HDD containing the *.tib file, and reboot. It should boot directly to the Linux environment. It takes a couple minutes but it gives you a type of progress display so you'll know it's working. I'm not sure if you have to make any choices. You may have to select a menu item "Copy files to RAM" or something similar. Eventually it will display a Linux desktop complete with a task bar, start button and some icons on the desktop. In the lower left corner there will be some hard drive icons, one is for your desktop drive and one is for the external drive. Clicking one of these icons opens a file manager for that drive (similar to Windows Explorer). What you want to do is open a separate file manager for both your PC drive and your external drive. Navigate the folder structure of the external drive to locate the *.tib file, then drag and drop it to a folder on your desktop PC hard drive. Once that's done you can remove the CD and reboot to Windows. Then move the *.tib file to the working external HDD. Let me know when you get there or if you have questions. Puppy has a Firefox browser so you can access this forum right from within Puppy; No need to boot back to Windows to do that.

 

Okay, I did burn the puppy to a cd last night but after that I just logged off (was getting a migraine and couldn't even see straight). Anyway, I have to take mom grocery shopping this morning so as soon as I get their groceries put away and am back home I will do as suggested.

I actually have a couple of external hard drives. I tend to like to keep a backup on one external and the next month I make one on the other external (just in case something should happen to one external - however; I obviously did not do that with the old desktop since I got the laptop and I never use the desktop anymore). Just to be on the safe side I will move my backups on the one external drive into a folder labeled vista - so that I don't mix them up.

Will be back in touch later one today.

Thanks Again,

Lisa

 

I'm back.....

I did start the desktop and made sure that the good external could be seen by the computer and that the seagate free start external was in the bottom section of the disk management before doing anything else. Once I knew that the WD 1tb external drivers were installed and the pc recognized that external (and that the seagate free agent still was in limbo) I then put the cd into the drive and restarted the pc.

It did start, but once I got a desktop there was a screen about not being connected to the internet (which I was before putting that disk in) and closing that screen I did get another pop-up screen for personalized settings and closed that one and then I was just at the desktop.

I did see the icons in the lower left for the floppy drive, the pioneer dvd/cd drive, a usb icon and the one that when I clicked on it was for the pc (with the folders for documents and settings, program files, system volume information, windows and other icons).

When I clicked on the icon of a usb flash drive I got a message NTFS WARNING: ntfs-3g driver was unable to mount the ntfs partition and returned an error message. Failed to write lock '/device/sdc1 : Resource temporarily available
Error opening '/device/sdc1 : Resource temporarily available
Failed to mount '/device/sdc1 : Resource temporarily available

So the inbuilt kernel NTFS driverhas been used to mount the partition read-only (this whole box was in red)

Then a box with PMount Puppy Drive Mounter box appeared with a tabs for the usbdrv; floppy;drive;optical

The drive tab is showing the size of the internal hard drive and the usbdrv shows the external wd 1tb drive and there are options for preferences; refresh;quit but I could not find any way to getto a screen similar to device manager to view the seagate true image external hard drive that is also connected with a usb port. So I just restarted the computer and when the screen about saving came up I clicked to not save, removed the disc and restarted windows.

I am not sure what to click on to find that other unallocated drive to even try and find the .tib file.

Lisa

 

I am notsure why but when Windows was restarting after having put that Puppy disc in and starting with that I got a screen stating Since Windows was first activated on tis computer the hardware on the computer has changed significantly. Due to these changes Windows must be reactivated within 3 days.

Not sure why that came up?

 

I was doing some more searching and found a program that is supposed to be able to recover .tib files called Disk Digger at http://diskdigger.org/ and it does specifically state that it can recover .tib files.

I was just going to simply forget it and trudge through the whole process of having to get all of the windows xp updates and stuff again but thought that I would at least give it a try. First I had to install the net framework and now that that is done I did start the disk digger program and as soon as I started it the program did see the external hard drive that has those files on it and is now doing the search for files on it. I am not sure how long it will take but the information at the site does state that it might take a really long time. However, I did click to deselect all files that it could search for and just put a check mark next to the .tib files so I am hoping that it might not take as long. Can't think of anything else - other than to simply go through the whole process of updates for Windows XP.

Will let you know if this does or does not work to recover the .tib files.

Lisa

 

I looked over the information on the DiskDigger website and apparently the program does not natively support/identify *.tib files. You have to create a custom XML script for that file type first.

1. Go to http://diskdigger.org/customcatalog
2. Right click on "Acronis True Image (TIB)" link
3. Choose "Save As"
4. Save "custom.xml" to the directory where DiskDigger is installed.

Then DiskDigger will search for *.tib file type when you run it.

The only other thing I was going to suggest was to use a data recovery program similar to Disk Digger.

 

Gosh Darn It! I didn't see that page. I did find that in the section for what types of files to search for there was an option for .tib so that is the only one that I clicked on (thinking that it would search for the .tib files on that drive).

When I clicked on the link you suggested and then clicked on that I get a page with the following:

This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.
<diskdigger>
<customfilter>
<extension>tib</extension>
<description>Acronis True Image file</description>
<beginbytes type="hex">CE24B9A220000000</beginbytes>
<endbytes type="hex" maxbytes="50000000">00000020A2B924CE</endbytes>
</customfilter>
</diskdigger>

I did right click and picked to save as.

But... I am thinking that all of this is just getting to be too much for trying to find and recover that file when the pc is actually up and running again (it is just a hassle to get all of the updates again - and all of this is turning into just as much a hassle)

Guess I can stop the darn scan and try it anyway. Thanks!

 

Didn't think about posting the file. Here it is. Just unzip it to your DiskDigger program directory.

 

I did right click and save it to the desktop but I just realized that when I clicked to install the program it isn't anywhere to be found in the program files or anywhere else besides in the folder on my desktop. So that is supposed to be where I put this file?

 

Whatever folder you placed DiskDigger in is the folder where you should put the custom.xml file. In other words, DiskDigger.exe and custom.xml need to be in the same folder.
If you're having trouble unzipping or locating the zip file, then you can instead simply copy the following text and paste it into a new text file. Then save the text file as "custom.xml" and place it in the folder where you have DiskDigger.exe

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<diskdigger>
<customfilter>
<extension>tib</extension>
<description>Acronis True Image file</description>
<beginbytes type="hex">CE24B9A220000000</beginbytes>
<endbytes type="hex" maxbytes="50000000">00000020A2B924CE</endbytes>
</customfilter>
</diskdigger>

 

Okay, that is exactly what I did do and this time I went through the steps and removed the check mark for all the files to search for and to just search for the .tib files and the custom file that was just added as per the information on http://diskdigger.org/customheuristics - which shows a picture of what it should look like and made sure that it stated .tib there as well and have started the search again.
Thanks for pointing that out to me. I never even looked any further and missed that completely (not even sure I would have looked for it since it had already stated that it would search for .tib files).

Thanks Again,
Will let you know how it goes tomorrow when the scan is finished (guessing this one is going to take awhile as well)

Lisa

 

Won't be able to tell you if this program worked or not for awhile. It had found some stuff before we went to bed last night - but at that time it just tells you the sectors. When we got up this morning we were without power or heat (and it was -6 degrees before the wind chill factor). Apparently with all of the high winds last night a few trees came down and took out a power line down the street (and the APC battery backup will only last for so long) so needless to say the pc shut down on me.

We now have power and heat again so things are starting to get back to "normal" did start the scan again and I will let you know what I find out as soon as I can.

Thanks Again,

Lisa

 

Hello Again,
Sorry about not getting back to you before now - just been really crazy around here and since this issue is simply about seeing if I could recover those files it got put on the back burner (so to speak) for a few days. I finally just gave up on trying to recover the .tib files (although the diskdigger program did find some files - but they did not look like .tib files and instead of going any further I just closed the program and formatted that external drive).

I may put a copy of a .tib file onto the hard drive at some time and then delete it and see if the diskdigger program can in fact restore it for me (just out of curiosity) Can't duplicate what ever it was that happened to that drive to begin with since I have no idea but at least I will have an idea if the diskdigger will really find and restore .tib files from an acronis true image backup.

Thanks Again for Absolutely Everything you did and all of the time you spent trying to help me out. I greatly appreciate it and can't thank you enough.

Lisa

 

And a great case-study for reading.

 

I'm just sorry that we couldn't restore that TrueImage backup. I too am quite curious about the obstacles encountered in your case. I put in a second (old) hard drive just so I can experiment with it (intentionally trashing partitions and the like) and then try to fix things. It was a pleasure working with you. Thank you for the follow up and best wishes for this new year.

 

I really would have liked to have been able to restore that Acronis True Image backup (primarily because I am stubborn - not that it was needed now) but I just started to get too frustrated with the whole thing and I knew that both of my parents had a slew of doctors appointments and such all this month. Otherwise I probably would have kept on trying to figure it out.

If I know how the drive became unallocated between the day I plugged it in and the pc could read it and the next day when it was no longer being seen in My Computer and reading as unallocated I would duplicate that as well and then see if I could recover those backups (when I have more time) but at least with the drive is now clean and formatted. I do intend to put a backup on it and then mess with the drive and then see if it can in fact be restored in good working order and validated by the Acronis True Image program. At least when I have some more time - hopefully next month.

I do recall that there was some other program for testing a hard drive but can't recall what it was so I figured that at least I would run the Seatools program would tell me if the drive was still in fact in good running condition after I formatted it and it past the short and long tests.

Again, Thanks So Very Much!

(if I do find out how to recover a .tib file I will let you know.)

Lisa

 

I've had a few Needs Formatting errors on hard-drives that'd I'd moved (did I dribble them across the court? Use them as fishing weights?!!) and I took my in-house gurus advice.

"Do a quick format, and then use some Drive Recovery Software. The Quick Format will probably use exactly the same Boot Sectors that the original Format used, so you're probably not overwriting a single useful 'data' sector. UNLESS the original Boot Sector is truly bad."

It wasn't. The Quick Format and using RECUVA's Deep Scan gave me just about everything.

Of course, RECUVA was installed on the main HDD, and this 'recovered' drive was a secondary.

I was going to suggest this as one solution to you, but I am glad to learn so much about the DIGGER software.