On Sat, 11 May 2013 22:28:53 +0200, Louis Lagendijk wrote: > here is a quick list of what to do: Thanks. I needed this step-by-step procedure; and I'll report back. I bought a new 2TB disk, named "My Passport". I will test the procedure with a spare 500GB disk, named "Signature Mini". > 1) connect your spare disk (USB) (not the bad disk!!!!!) and as root > check what device id it got (tail /var/log/messages) look for detected > partitions there or do > fdisk -l /dev/sdx where the sdx is what you found from /var/log/messages 0. $ sudo tail -f /var/log/messages 1. I plugged in the 2TB new disk. ==> May 31 20:52:37 ntfs-3g[4213]: Mounted /dev/sdb1 (Read-Write, label "My Passport", NTFS 3.1) 2. $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb ==> Disk /dev/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000365289472 bytes ==> /dev/sdb1 1 243198 1953480704 7 HPFS/NTFS > 2) As root Mount the disk: > mount /devsdxy /mnt > (where y is the partion number you want to mount) 3. $ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt ==> Mount is denied because the NTFS volume is already exclusively opened. ==> The volume may be already mounted, or another software may use it which ==> could be identified for example by the help of the 'fuser' command. > if mounted goto 3 > This may fail if it is ntfs > 2B) If it fails format the disk as ext4: > mkfs /dev/sdxy > and then mount it as under 2 Should I now format the 2TB disk using this command? $ sudo mkfs /dev/sdb1 And then mount it as: $ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt > 3) I assume here that your bad disk is already connected (as sdz check > first what the real name is) At this point, I connect the 500GB test disk and this shows up in the tail of /var/log/messages: May 31 21:02:39 ntfs-3g[4787]: Mounted /dev/sdc1 (Read-Write, label "SignatureMini", NTFS 3.1) > dd if=/dev/sdz of=/mnt/image.dd bs=1M > This will copy the contents of your bad disk to image.dd Is this the correct command given the test information above: $ sudo dd if=/dev/sdc of=/mnt/image.dd bs=1M > 4) just to be sure, make the image read-only > chmod uog=r /mnt/image.dd I presume I do this after the previous dd command finishes. $ sudo chmod uog=r /mnt/image.dd > 5) install testdisk from the epel repo > yum install testdisk $ sudo yum --enablerepo epel install testdisk -y ==> Installed: testdisk.x86_64 0:6.12-2.el6 ==> Dependency Installed: libewf.x86_64 0:20100226-1.el6 Note: This apparently installs /usr/bin/photorec > 6) now run photorec from a directory where you have sufficient space, > ifg your usb disk is big enough do it there (hint create a sub-directory > mdkdir /mnt/recover > cd /mnet/recover You probably mean "mkdir", so is this what I run: $ sudo mkdir /mnt/recover $ cd /mnt/recover > but any dorectory would do > photorec /mnt/image.dd $ sudo photorec /mnt/image.dd Q: Is this the recommended procedure as written after your comments?