4:49 PM 7/9/2006
To preface I am a winXP (dissatified) user who is also a medler with Linux.
I've searched the lists of help pages and now it's time for me to scream HELP. Yesterday, I turned on my external HD which is a Western Digital 160G in an ADS Tech case. I had it partioned into at least 3 ways. The thing had a way of cycling on and off during its first few minutes of power up while MSXP Autoplay would ask what did I want to do with this kind of multi-media device. Normally I click escape open a explorer window and let well enough alone; this time I clicked on open in folder, do always (for both drives that had stuff on them). I then proceded to copy over the new pixs from the week past. I left the room. When I came back there was a copy message error that I didn't read and clicked okay. I tried to access the drive. I couldn't. I reboted my laptop. Nothing. I cycled on and off the HD. Nothing. I examined the window control pannel info nothing. I could see the drive but not the data nor gain access to it. Today I've removed the HD and placed it into a tower. This is the info I am pulling off of a Live Linux Distro.

I do not want to loose the data on this disk! I have nearly 40 Gigs of pictures I've taken in the last 2 years. Many of these images I have taken for friends who will occassionally ask for additional copies. I do not have DVDs of very many of them.

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I began with---
:sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/hda /media/pixs

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

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:sudo dmesg | tail
NTFS driver 2.1.22 [Flags: R/O MODULE].
NTFS-fs error (device hda): read_ntfs_boot_sector_(): Primary boot sector is invalid.
NTFS-fs error (device hda): read_ntfs_boot_sector_(): Mount option errors=recover not used. Aborting without trying to recover.
NTFS-fs error (device hda): ntfs_fill_super(): Not an NTFS volume.
NTFS-fs error (device hda): read_ntfs_boot_sector_(): Primary boot sector is invalid.
NTFS-fs error (device hda): read_ntfs_boot_sector_(): Mount option errors=recover not used. Aborting without trying to recover.
NTFS-fs error (device hda): ntfs_fill_super(): Not an NTFS volume.
FAT: utf8 is not recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems. filesystem will be case sensitive!
FAT: invalid media value (0xe8)
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev hda.

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other areas of interest

:sudo fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 160.0 GB 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 822520 bytes

Disk /dev/hda doesn't contain a valid partion table

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:sudo parted /dev/hda check MINOR
Error: Unable to open /dev/hda - uncrecognized disk label.
Information: Don't forget to update /etc/fstab, if necessary.

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Where do I go from here?

This would be wrong, but it doesn't appear to be the root cause of your problem. /dev/hda would be the entire disk. You don't mount the disk, you mount a partition. You should be mounting something like /dev/hda1 or /dev/hda2 or /dev/hda3, etc.

However, the following doesn't look so good. You are calling fdisk correctly, but receiving an error:
Was this external backup disk formatted, and backups done, using some proprietary manufacturer's software? Or perchance, did you use something like Symantec's "GoBack" on it?

Until you can read a partition table on the thing, you won't be able to mount anything off of it. That's why I said above that your mount command was wrong, but it wasn't the root cause of your problem.

Now, IF this disk is using some proprietary software/partitioning scheme, you might be in for some real headaches accessing it via Linux.

thanks

I was copying things over at the time this disk went bad. I thinks I had it partioned with the WD software supplied with the hard disk. with the way it was set up was through the virtual file system.