TestDisk Mystery

[BaconLT]

As a preface, simply following the TestDisk tutorials and scouring the forums let me nowhere. I found a lot of solutions to a lot of problems, but none that seem to resemble mine exactly enough for me to solve them.

I have a corrupted partition table on a 32G USB thumb drive. Fdisk shows this:

Disk /dev/sdd: 31.8 GB, 31750881280 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 30280 cylinders, total 62013440 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x23a567f5

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 ? 1184891080 2320662151 567885536 d Unknown
/dev/sdd2 69240904 69240969 33 4 FAT16 <32M
/dev/sdd3 2147944456 2152155935 2105740 10 OPUS
/dev/sdd4 ? 269091841 2419214368 1075061264 6a Unknown

Partition table entries are not in disk order



The disk WAS one partition - I think FAT32.

I used TestDisk to try to recover the structure. Initially, this is what I get:
Disk /dev/sdd - 31 GB / 29 GiB - CHS 30280 64 32
Current partition structure:
Partition Start End Size in sectors

1 * Sys=0D 578560 6 9 1133135 52 8 1135771072

Warning: Bad ending sector (CHS and LBA don't match)
check_FAT: can't read FAT boot sector
Invalid FAT boot sector
2 P FAT16 <32M 33809 2 9 33809 4 10 66
2 P FAT16 <32M 33809 2 9 33809 4 10 66

Warning: Bad starting sector (CHS and LBA don't match)
3 P OPUS 1048801 0 9 1050857 24 32 4211480

Warning: Bad starting sector (CHS and LBA don't match)
4 * Sys=6A 131392 32 2 1181257 1 1 2150122528

Warning: Bad ending sector (CHS and LBA don't match)
Only one partition must be bootable
Space conflict between the following two partitions
4 * Sys=6A 131392 32 2 1181257 1 1 2150122528
1 * Sys=0D 578560 6 9 1133135 52 8 1135771072
Space conflict between the following two partitions
1 * Sys=0D 578560 6 9 1133135 52 8 1135771072
3 P OPUS 1048801 0 9 1050857 24 32 4211480


Then after Quicksearch:

Disk /dev/sdd - 31 GB / 29 GiB - CHS 30280 64 32

Warning: the current number of heads per cylinder is 64
but the correct value may be 255.
You can use the Geometry menu to change this value.
It's something to try if
- some partitions are not found by TestDisk
- or the partition table can not be written because partitions overlaps.



And after Continue:

Disk /dev/sdd - 31 GB / 29 GiB - CHS 30280 64 32
Partition Start End Size in sectors
>* FAT32 LBA 0 1 1 30279 63 32 62013408 [DISK_IMG]


When I tap 'p', the ugly truth confronts me:
* FAT32 LBA 0 1 1 30279 63 32 62013408 [DISK_IMG]
Directory /

>-r-xr-xr-x 0 0 685011246 27-Jul-2003 03:09 Yd�]�c]b
drwxr-xr-x 0 0 3152325290 24-Dec-1934 03:42 ^_Q~Q~B_QZY.V>Y
drwxr-xr-x 0 0 375828354 10-May-2000 21:23 �h��٢�[.��S
-rwxr-xr-x 0 0 1478710608 3-Jan-2019 11:00 �e���O�7.vͻ


and many, MANY, more corrupted file names.

PhotoRec recovered all of the files, so at least I have the thousand or so photos that were there, but there are a lot of important executables and directories on this drive.

Is it a lost cause at this point or is the directory structure recoverable?

[BaconLT]

Workaround - I got in to work today and there is a backup. Thank heaven.

[alphaamanitin]

Don't know if I would trust that USB drive if I were you.

alphaA