GPT partition table error - HELP !

Hi all,

looking to solve a problem with 2 Seagate Archive HDDs (each 8 TB of data - external storage)  that occurred on Monday mysteriously.

That Monday my Win10 machine did read both via usb3 HDD reading device. I checked them both as usual.
I worked on he one where I have stored my personal data in order to sort out couple of documents from the last century …

On Tuesday, the disk wasn’t recognized anymore. The 2nd disk, which wasn’t manipulated on Monday, neither!
I tried another Win10 machine with the same HDD reader via USB3, no success.
I was actually thinking, that either the reader or win10 are the source of the problem.
With test disk and Mini Tool PW I can identify the missing partitions.

Looks like I have a problem of reading the partition table (GPT) on the disk, but data is there.
Now I am looking for:
Anyone could guide me to an instruction how to repair this GPT under CMD /  diskpart or other utils free of charge?

I remember to have that done once, but it looks now like a decade ago. Using search engines is of no help as wondershare, easeus, minitool and all other companies with the same product have occupied the first 200 or so entries no matter what you ask about GPT table recovery …

An alternative is to recover the data on another HDD, but that’s not free of failure risk and its about 12 TB of data (personal / picture / music)

 

Thanks to the friendly crowd of AS in advance ;-)
Tom

15 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

Hi all,

 

 

looking to solve a problem with 2 Seagate Archive HDDs (each 8 TB of data - external storage)  that occurred on Monday mysteriously.

That Monday my Win10 machine did read both via usb3 HDD reading device. I checked them both as usual.
I worked on he one where I have stored my personal data in order to sort out couple of documents from the last century …

On Tuesday, the disk wasn’t recognized anymore. The 2nd disk, which wasn’t manipulated on Monday, neither!
I tried another Win10 machine with the same HDD reader via USB3, no success.
I was actually thinking, that either the reader or win10 are the source of the problem.
With test disk and Mini Tool PW I can identify the missing partitions.

Looks like I have a problem of reading the partition table (GPT) on the disk, but data is there.
Now I am looking for:
Anyone could guide me to an instruction how to repair this GPT under CMD /  diskpart or other utils free of charge?

 

 

I remember to have that done once, but it looks now like a decade ago. Using search engines is of no help as wondershare, easeus, minitool and all other companies with the same product have occupied the first 200 or so entries no matter what you ask about GPT table recovery …

 

 

An alternative is to recover the data on another HDD, but that’s not free of failure risk and its about 12 TB of data (personal / picture / music)

 

 

 

 

Thanks to the friendly crowd of AS in advance ;-)
Tom

 

 

 

Hi Tom, on your Windows machine, have you looked at dispart?

 

 

DISKPART> help

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.22621.1

ACTIVE      - Mark the selected partition as active.
ADD         - Add a mirror to a simple volume.
ASSIGN      - Assign a drive letter or mount point to the selected volume.
ATTRIBUTES  - Manipulate volume or disk attributes.
ATTACH      - Attaches a virtual disk file.
AUTOMOUNT   - Enable and disable automatic mounting of basic volumes.
BREAK       - Break a mirror set.
CLEAN       - Clear the configuration information, or all information, off the
              disk.
COMPACT     - Attempts to reduce the physical size of the file.
CONVERT     - Convert between different disk formats.
CREATE      - Create a volume, partition or virtual disk.
DELETE      - Delete an object.
DETAIL      - Provide details about an object.
DETACH      - Detaches a virtual disk file.
EXIT        - Exit DiskPart.
EXTEND      - Extend a volume.
EXPAND      - Expands the maximum size available on a virtual disk.
FILESYSTEMS - Display current and supported file systems on the volume.
FORMAT      - Format the volume or partition.
GPT         - Assign attributes to the selected GPT partition.
HELP        - Display a list of commands.
IMPORT      - Import a disk group.
INACTIVE    - Mark the selected partition as inactive.
LIST        - Display a list of objects.
MERGE       - Merges a child disk with its parents.
ONLINE      - Online an object that is currently marked as offline.
OFFLINE     - Offline an object that is currently marked as online.
RECOVER     - Refreshes the state of all disks in the selected pack.
              Attempts recovery on disks in the invalid pack, and
              resynchronizes mirrored volumes and RAID5 volumes
              that have stale plex or parity data.
REM         - Does nothing. This is used to comment scripts.
REMOVE      - Remove a drive letter or mount point assignment.
REPAIR      - Repair a RAID-5 volume with a failed member.
RESCAN      - Rescan the computer looking for disks and volumes.
RETAIN      - Place a retained partition under a simple volume.
SAN         - Display or set the SAN policy for the currently booted OS.
SELECT      - Shift the focus to an object.
SETID       - Change the partition type.
SHRINK      - Reduce the size of the selected volume.
UNIQUEID    - Displays or sets the GUID partition table (GPT) identifier or
              master boot record (MBR) signature of a disk.

 

Thanks, Chris.

yes, I did. But disk part cant identify the partition (imho)
 

I am coming to the point where I have the disk as active disk identified, but then the struggle starts ...

6 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

Thanks, Chris.

yes, I did. But disk part cant identify the partition (imho)
 

I am coming to the point where I have the disk as active disk identified, but then the struggle starts ...

DDME free edition 

 

https://dmde.com/download.html

5 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

DDME free edition 

 

https://dmde.com/download.html

I may give it a try, at least the fully functional version is dirt cheap (16 USD) compared to Mini Tool (I was offered a 159 USD solution).
Thanks

1 minute ago, DuckToller said:

I may give it a try, at least the fully functional version is dirt cheap (16 USD) compared to Mini Tool (I was offered a 159 USD solution).
Thanks

Yeah, that was my thinking. Try it to see if it will even work, then if it does, the price isn't bad. It's a tool some pros use, rather than the one's that have gamed Google's algorithm. 

I had a short look at that tool yesterday already .. thus had the impression its for file saving

Have identified a couple of unsuccesful windows updates Monday evening / night / Tuesday mornig, which may be the source of all evil ...

4 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

I wish I knew what it was telling you :~)

Me too, Chris ;-)
I may wait until someone with knowledge confirms my assumption
I tend to .... delete
The indicated T / C (in red) and the MS reserved GUID
Having only one proper GPT may be helpful ?

for example I dont understand  if I can just copy the GPT data to a file as a backup for rewriting and start eliminating problems ?
I may look for some forum about that software with pros that know how to solve these problems ...

4 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

Me too, Chris ;-)
I may wait until someone with knowledge confirms my assumption
I tend to .... delete
The indicated T / C (in red) and the MS reserved GUID
Having only one proper GPT may be helpful ?

Did you read the manual? 😁

 

I wonder if you'll have to just attempt to restore the data to another disk. 

Chris, that's always the obvious option, but that requires the disks and a lot of time, while repairing a GPT table may be smart and easy if you know how to ?
And I've read the manual but could not indicate how to manage the red lighted problems.
May do it again German, who knows if its me or them ;.-)

39 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

decided to go the restore data route , shot me a 4 TB SSD (about one week to late ...) , which is sufficent to recover the data of Disk 1, After reformatting Disk 1 I'll recover my music from disk 2. Actually these are backup disks,
Thank you for your support, Chris

There's always the perfect solution, and the solution one ends up using. They are often different :~)

Here's a quick note for @The Computer Audiophile

 

I was contemplating buying the DMDE software ... and I did buy a 4 TB SSD for recovery ...
My 8TB HDD with music files was indenntified correctly by a new HDD reader .. one problem less, the other one with documents and pictures was still inaccessible.
Then I thought, why not setting up another WIN10 machine (without network to avoid updates) , get the HDDs and the SSD installed and check again with testdisk for windows 7.2.

This time the program had no issues to identify the partition and allowed me to write the boot sector again ... exactly like this:
 

>>
"TestDisk is able to use the backup boot sector to repair the main boot sector:
• start TestDisk
• select the device containing the partition (avoid drive letter like D:)
• confirm the partition table type
• go in the Advanced menu
• select the partition
• choose Boot
If the boot sector is damaged, Boot sector: Bad will be shown. If the backup is OK, Backup boot sector: Ok will also be listed.
• choose BackupBS
• confirm
• Quit
• restart the computer"
<<

 

After restart my patition returend back into visibility/accessibilty under Windows Explorer. I am currently writing a backup slowly onto the new SSD, from which I will continue to modify the data ....

 

What's the essence ?
Windows update failed when the disk was attached. The recent (2022) win10 machine were unable to detect the correct values for one disk afterwards. A untouched new system allowed me to get testdisk running properly for fixing the bootsector.
I even haven't insert the win 10 key ... ;-)
 

Maybe somwhen in the dark future someone will find  her/his/their salvation reading this and save hundreds of dollars for software that has spoiled the google algorithm

Cheers, Tom

 

2 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

Here's a quick note for @The Computer Audiophile

 

I was contemplating buying the DMDE software ... and I did buy a 4 TB SSD for recvovery ...
My 8TB HDD with music files was indenntified correctly by a new HDD reader .. one problem less, the oter one with documents and pictures was still inaccessible.
Then I thought, why not setting up another WIN10 machine (without network to avoid updates) , get the HDDs and te SSD installed and check again with testdisk  for windows 7.2.

This time the program had no issues to identify the partition and allowed me to write the boot sector again ... exactly like this:
 

>>
"TestDisk is able to use the backup boot sector to repair the main boot sector:
• start TestDisk
• select the device containing the partition (avoid drive letter like D:)
• confirm the partition table type
• go in the Advanced menu
• select the partition
• choose Boot
If the boot sector is damaged, Boot sector: Bad will be shown. If the backup is OK, Backup boot sector: Ok will also
be listed.
• choose BackupBS
• confirm
• Quit
• restart the computer"
<<

 

After restart my patition returend back into visibility/accessibilty under Windows Explorer. I am currently writing a backup slowly onto the new SSD, from which I will continue to modify the data ....

 

What's the essence ?
Windows update failed when the disk was attached. The recent (2022) win10 machine were unable to detect the correct values for one disk afterwards. A untouched new system allowed me to get testdisk running properly for fixing the bootsector.
I even haven't insert the win 10 key ... ;-)
 

Maybe somwhen in the dark future someone will find  her/his/their salvation reading this and save hundreds of dollars for software that has spoiled the google algorithm

Cheers, Tom

 

WOW! Thanks Tom!

This is testdisk:
https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk