I registered here in the hope that my data can still be recovered.
I switched my parents computer from Windows to Zorin and I am actually quite satisfied, even though I am not familiar with Linux. My parents hadn't done any updates for a long time, so I had to help them out with ap-get update etc.
That worked. Unfortunately, the PC froze when I restarted it, so I disconnected it from the power supply. Now it was no longer possible to boot up (unfortunately, I forgot the error message).
I have now purchased a case for the hard drive and connected the SSD to another PC running Zorin. Unfortunately, the SSD is not recognized.
Can someone please help me recover my data? Unfortunately, I hadn't made a backup in months...
If the drive in question is /dev/sdb as per the output you showed, it looks like it's not detecting the size correctly. I'm not sure if this is because the data got corrupted when the computer froze, or maybe something else entirely.
Did you disconnect the computer from the power right away or did you let it some time to see if it recovered? Sometimes, it's just the UI that freezes but background processes can still run fine. And did the update complete, as in were you able to reboot properly at any point?
Yes, the update was complete, it just needed to be restarted. I used the PC for a while longer before I wanted to restart it.
Unfortunately, I occasionally had the problem that the PC froze when shutting down and I had to disconnect it from the power supply. After doing some research, I found that this was a hardware problem, but I couldn't find a simple solution. So, as usual, I simply (and quickly) disconnected the PC from the power supply when it tried to restart. This time, it was probably a mistake...
When I enter cd/dev/sdb/, I get: File or directory not found.
Understandable. But at the moment, we are looking to recover the drive data.
@zenzen is spot on about the concerns that drive is reading with a size of Zero. The controller board on the drive itself may be at fault.
Situations, like a power outage or spike can cause this; the controller board stops being able to communicate with the motherboard and operating system.
Connecting to SATA - or... if you have no way of doing so - a directly powered USB (Instead of relying on the USB port from the computer to provide all the power) may get the controller board to relay information.
Okay, I understand. I can try to install the HDD in the Windows PC on Friday; unfortunately, there is no other option in my Zorin mini tower at the moment.
Yep, typically a spinning platter drive, whether 3.5, or 2.5 format, requires extra power to properly spin the hard drive up. Yet another reason I prefer SSD & NVME drives, their low power requirements, are easier to deal with, especially in testing.
Oh I used the wrong term. I have a 2.5 SSD drive, not an "old" HDD. Sorry for misleading information. I always used the term "HDD" for both - HDD and SSD.
I am thinking was the SSD formatted ext4, or is it a format that can be recognised by Windows if using a Windows PC. You may need to boot ZorinOS Live USB on that Windows PC if SSD is ext4.
There are also some docking stations that allow you to clone the drive to another one. Even if it's in a bad state, this would allow you to run some more tests like formatting the drive again. If the only problem is with the partition table, this would readjust it and the files would be accessible again.
This is can cause more harm, so don't go doing this blindly, only as a last resource.
/dev/sdb is the device; but to cd (Change Directory) command to it, you need a path to the Mounted drive.
Usually, it would look like cd /media/$USER/<volume-label> or cd /mnt/<volume-label>
You can check the mounted drives ID's with to find teh -volume-label-
lsblk
In my case, my output shows sdb as having:
├─sdb1 8:17 0 16M 0 part
└─sdb2 8:18 0 1.8T 0 part /mnt/4b399979-5ef8-4a8b-84ff-ad4e310bb520
So my own cd command would look like cd /mnt/4b399979-5ef8-4a8b-84ff-ad4e310bb520
Yours may be media or may be mnt (for mount)
followed by the listed Volume Label.
Once you enter the cd /mnt/long-number command successfully, (The terminal address will change to that location, showing success), run
Thanks for detailed help, I appreciate it!
You can see my lsblk in first post. There is no long number. I guess sda is my working sdd and sdb the broken one.
Yes I did, didnt work. I also tried "testdisk" but it is still trying to read sdb but also doesnt look too promising.
Probing /dev/sda...
Attempting seek from end...
Seek successful: 500107862016
Detected block size: 512
Confirmed disk: /dev/sda: 500107862016
Probing /dev/sdb...
Attempting seek from end...
Detected block size: 512
Attempting binary search of disk size...
Confirmed disk: /dev/sdb: 512
Setting next step...
Opening disk...
Finished opening disk...
Getting partitions...
Detecting sector-0 partition...
Error reading disk: Success
Error reading disk: Success
Error reading disk: Success
Automatically ignoring this error...
Attempted to read beyond the size of the disk.
at A.r.A(Byte[], Int32, Int32)
at A.J.A(r)
Attempted to read beyond the size of the disk.
at A.r.A(Byte[], Int32, Int32)
at A.f.A(r)
at A.l.a(r)
at A.l.A(r, Boolean )
Setting next step...
Setting previous step...
Getting partitions...
Detecting sector-0 partition...
Attempted to read beyond the size of the disk.
at A.r.A(Byte[], Int32, Int32)
at A.J.A(r)
Attempted to read beyond the size of the disk.
at A.r.A(Byte[], Int32, Int32)
at A.f.A(r)
at A.l.a(r)
at A.l.A(r, Boolean )
Setting previous step...
Probing /dev/sda...
Attempting seek from end...
Seek successful: 500107862016
Detected block size: 512
Confirmed disk: /dev/sda: 500107862016
Probing /dev/sdb...
Attempting seek from end...
Detected block size: 512
Attempting binary search of disk size...
Confirmed disk: /dev/sdb: 512
