USB to IDE

TurkisH · 08-05-2008, 12:33 PM

LS,

Recently I have bought an USB to IDE (cable + powersupply) to access my older harddisks. Unfortunately i cannot get my old IDE harddisk (used to be gentoo on it) to work with the USB-cable:

output dmesg

Code:

[  562.525175] usb-storage: device found at 18
[  562.525181] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[  563.455834] usb-storage: device scan complete
[  563.457752] scsi 19:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Maxtor 6 Y120P0           0811 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
[  563.459955] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdb] 240121728 512-byte hardware sectors (122942 MB)
[  563.461452] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdb] Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
[  563.461460] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[  563.463074] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdb] 240121728 512-byte hardware sectors (122942 MB)
[  563.464697] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdb] Test WP failed, assume Write Enabled
[  563.464704] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[  563.464711]  sdb:
[  563.481554] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[  563.481639] sd 19:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0

fdisk gives:

Code:

ubuntu@ubuntu:/$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 100.0 GB, 100030242816 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12921 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x7e827e0d

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        4856    36703232    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2            4856       12922    60980224    7  HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 122.9 GB, 122942324736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14946 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x91b3b121

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

Mount gives the following message:

Code:

ubuntu@ubuntu:/$ sudo mount /dev/sdb /mnt/usbstorage
mount: you must specify the filesystem type

ubuntu@ubuntu:/$ sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb /mnt/usbstorage
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

dmesg
[  751.565112] VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev sdb.

Important to know is that Gentoo on this harddisk has crashed (can't remember the reasons). My purpose is to get old data (photo's/music), that are still on this disc.

Can someone help me please? Maybe the partition table is broken?

By the way I am using ubuntu live CD
Thanks in advance for your help.

tredegar · 08-05-2008, 01:00 PM

fdisk -l for /dev/sdb does not look good.

Does your USB to IDE thing work OK with other (good) disks?
If so, I suggest you read up on testdisk and photorec which both have good reputations for recovering data from partly broken, but still readable disks.

Do you have enough HDD space free to take a dd copy of your bad disk?

If so, I recommend you image it now. You probably should do this as root (so triple-check your commands before you press RETURN!):

Code:

dd  if=/dev/sdb  of=/home/me/baddisk.raw

Wait (maybe for quite a long time, depending on the size of your disk, and the speed of your interface (remember, USB is s-l-o-w)) while the disk is imaged.

Then you can play with your copy, leaving the original HDD unchanged:

Code:

mkdir /home/me/baddisk
mount  -o  loop  /home/me/baddisk.raw  /home/me/baddisk

Then you should be able to point photorec at /home/me/baddisk and it will behave as though it was looking at /dev/sdb

See what happens, and let us know.

unSpawn · 08-05-2008, 01:59 PM

On the other hand, if you are certain it's just the partition table, you might want to run 'testdisk' (photorec's companion app) first on the disk to see if it can retrieve settings as you think are right. Notice running testdisk diagnosis is not destructive (no backup necessary) until you use "write".

TurkisH · 08-05-2008, 02:01 PM

Dear Tredegar, thanks for your reply and extensive explanation.

I followed your advice and download testdisk, excellent program by the way. Unfortunately the first analysis didn't found any lost partitions. I am now doing a deeper search, after that I will try the advanced superblock option.

I'll keep you informed.

tredegar · 08-05-2008, 02:07 PM

Did you see unSpawn's post, above?

TurkisH · 08-05-2008, 02:36 PM

Yeah, I've seen unspawn's post (thx btw

)

Discovered this also myself. I've used the diagnosis tool on the live disk, however no results. Now trying the photorec tool...

jiml8 · 08-05-2008, 02:52 PM

I wonder if there is a problem with your interface hardware. What we have here, so far, is a clear inability to read the HD. The HD's firmware can be read, but an attempt to read the platter to get the MBR fails, as does (apparently) any attempt to read the platter to obtain partition information the hard way.

If I were you, I would put the drive into another machine and try to read it.

tredegar · 08-05-2008, 03:01 PM

Quote:

I wonder if there is a problem with your interface hardware.

I already asked him to check this.

Quote:

Does your USB to IDE thing work OK with other (good) disks?

Maybe he hasn't.

jiml8 · 08-05-2008, 03:23 PM

Yeah, maybe he hasn't. From where I sit, based on the symptoms, it is the most likely problem.