Locked to Windows? That doesn't seem at all likely to me. Technically, I can't imagine what that would mean. I can't swear that I've used Western Digital usb hard drives on linux but I've used so many that it would be a shock if none of then have been Western Digital. The brand doesn't matter. It's the USB subsystem that does all the work and WD couldn't build a drive that didn't work with that. It would be likeLogitech making a mouse that didn't work with a normal USB port. If you can't just plug it in and it works, nobody will buy it. I think you need to look for a more basic problem than that. I don't know how experienced you are but are you aware that you may have to mount the drive in linux? If you're booting into grml, it's not going to mount the USB hard drive automatically. You may also have to check if the USB subsystem sees the drive. There are lots of docs out there on doing that. But if Windows recognizes a USB hard drive, I'd bet my house linux would see it too. That can't be the problem. On 11/06/2017 01:11 AM, David Mehler wrote:

Hello,

Continuing my drive data recovery saga, I've hit a snag. Apparently first both the passport and the easystore are both western digital drives, I was under the mistaken belief that the passport was Seagate, but it's showing up as western digital.

The problem is neither drive is showing up in Linux. Googling seems to indicate that western digital usb external drives are for a better word locked to windows/ or have an encryption pack on them. Can anyone confirm this? Is there a way to get rid of this and access these drives under Linux? I've got the tools ready to go.

Getting frustrated.

Thanks. Dave.

On 11/6/17, Eigeldinger Simon wrote:

...

Hi David,

You could use any linux distro. the most have those tools by default if you want to install a vm. grml isn't made for that though you could try. maybe grml2hd is still in there. though the wiki and google is a good friend on that.

I also would do that on bare metal. Better to do that that way instead over a vm because then the hd can be accessed directly.

Greetings, Simon

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Simon Eigeldinger Informatik Nebengebäude 1, OG1 ------------------------- Stadt Hohenems Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Straße 4 6845 Hohenems Österreich Tel.: +43 5576 7101-1143 Fax: +43 5576 7101-1149 E-Mail: simon.eigeldinger@hohenems.at Web: www.hohenems.at

Diese Nachricht und allfällige angehängte Dokumente sind vertraulich und nur für den/die Adressaten bestimmt. -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] Im Auftrag von David Mehler Gesendet: Sonntag, 05. November 2017 23:56 An: Blind sysadmins list Betreff: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] recovering data from a usb3 external hard drive

Hello everyone,

Thank you all for your replies. I had a bit of a crisis the past day and a half but it's done now, so I can get back to this.

I'm going to try in this order, TestDisk, photorec, then ntfsundelete from the ntfsprogs package that one was recommended by a friend of mine.

Simon, thank you for the grml links, I'm downloading now, can I run from a vm as a live environment or can I install to the vm?Have you tried any other live environments?

Thanks. Dave.

On 11/4/17, Simon Eigeldinger via Blind-sysadmins wrote:

...

Hi,

I prefer grml. it has speakup/espeakup and more tools. it also includes clonezilla, photorec, testdisk and other stuff you might find fun to play with.

Here are the latest isos:

32 bit: http://daily.grml.org/grml32-full_sid/latest/grml32-full_sid_latest.is o

64 bit: http://daily.grml.org/grml64-full_sid/latest/grml64-full_sid_latest.is o

grml accessibility page: http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=accessibility

Greetings, Simon

Am 05.11.2017 um 02:07 schrieb David Mehler:

...

Hello everyone,

Thank you. The applications photorec and TestDisk were the two I was going to try next.

What about a Linux rescue environment, something I can run from a virtual machine? I've heard of SystemRescueCD, something with a graphical environment. Is this one accessible? If not, are there others that are?

Thanks. Dave.

On 11/4/17, Simon Eigeldinger via Blind-sysadmins wrote:

...

Hi,

I also got some luck with photorec.

additionally my ntfs formatted 3 TB hdd has the following total capacity: 2.72 TB. those are 3,000,454,082,560 Bytes

Greetings, Simon

greetings, Simon

Am 04.11.2017 um 23:39 schrieb Anatoliy Shudrya:

...

Hi Dave, Data recovery is very time consuming. I have previously used TestDisk with great success. It's a command line utility and I think I had to use JAWS cursor to read all prompts. I am not sure though if it supports 4 TB drives, haven't used it for a while.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Saturday, November 4, 2017 11:50 AM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] recovering data from a usb3 external hard drive

Hello,

This drive is not mine, nor is the error that brought it to me.

A friend of mine, I believe if the information I have is accurate, mistakenly thought this drive a 4TB my passport Seagate I believe, quick formatted it. The size is 4tb of which 3.63tb show up.

I had him get another drive, this one a 4tb western digital I believe it's an easy store, this one also with 3.63 tb available.

This format was done on a win10 machine.

I've tried twice to recover anything using the free recuva program. Running a deep scan shows 27 files but it can't get any of them. Running for a better word the light scan shows the same 27 files, but in that case I can highlight them all, right click, choose recover selected.

I selected the easystore drive and attempted a recovery. First issue it told me that I needed 3.63tb only 3.62 were available. The drive had some content from western digital on it, I moved it off the drive and tried it again.

This time it said insufficient space needed 3.63tb available 3.63tb, numbers were identical, but it asked me if I wanted to try a different recovery path, which that's the only drive I've got that can recover such a substancial load.

Then I thought well maybe when both the my passport was originally formatted/partitioned and accidentally quick formatted, maybe the cluster sizes were incompatible between the my passport and the easystore.

So I went in to format, didn't do anything to either drive, but compared the cluster size, blew my theory away both have a cluster size of 4096k. I hit cancel so nothing more was done.

I'm kind of stuck. It takes about a day for the initial scan, i'm assuming the same neartime for the recovery, this is my third attempt.

I then got the idea of recovering each of the 27 individual files. Tried that and it said I didn't have permissions to perform the recovery operation, which makes no sense, I'm an admin on this box, also win10 pro, his win10 is home, but neither of those usb drives should be dealing with permissions, even though they're both ntfs.

I'd appreciate any suggestions, I'm kind of stuck.

Thanks. Dave.

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_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- Simon Eigeldinger Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/domasofan/ E-Mail: simon.eigeldinger@vol.at ICQ: 121823966 Jabber: domasofan@andrelouis.com

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-- Simon Eigeldinger Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/domasofan/ E-Mail: simon.eigeldinger@vol.at ICQ: 121823966 Jabber: domasofan@andrelouis.com

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_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

Are you sure the USB subsystem isn't seeing the drive? Have you monitored the system log while you plug the drive in? Are you sure the cable or the drive itself isn't defective? Even with a piece of hardware as esoteric as a USB speech synthesizer, the USB subsystem at least knows it's there. It doesn't know what to do with it but it knows it's there. Like I said, I'll bet my house the linux kernel knows there is a USB device there and even that it's an external hard drive unless the cable or the drive itself is defective. On 11/06/2017 10:24 AM, David Mehler wrote:

Hello,

Thanks. I am aware you have to mount a drive under Linux. When I plug the drive in it is not seen by the usb subsystem.

Thanks. Dave.

On 11/6/17, John G Heim wrote:

...

Locked to Windows? That doesn't seem at all likely to me. Technically, I can't imagine what that would mean. I can't swear that I've used Western Digital usb hard drives on linux but I've used so many that it would be a shock if none of then have been Western Digital. The brand doesn't matter. It's the USB subsystem that does all the work and WD couldn't build a drive that didn't work with that. It would be likeLogitech making a mouse that didn't work with a normal USB port. If you can't just plug it in and it works, nobody will buy it.

I think you need to look for a more basic problem than that. I don't know how experienced you are but are you aware that you may have to mount the drive in linux? If you're booting into grml, it's not going to mount the USB hard drive automatically. You may also have to check if the USB subsystem sees the drive. There are lots of docs out there on doing that. But if Windows recognizes a USB hard drive, I'd bet my house linux would see it too. That can't be the problem.

On 11/06/2017 01:11 AM, David Mehler wrote:

...

Hello,

Continuing my drive data recovery saga, I've hit a snag. Apparently first both the passport and the easystore are both western digital drives, I was under the mistaken belief that the passport was Seagate, but it's showing up as western digital.

The problem is neither drive is showing up in Linux. Googling seems to indicate that western digital usb external drives are for a better word locked to windows/ or have an encryption pack on them. Can anyone confirm this? Is there a way to get rid of this and access these drives under Linux? I've got the tools ready to go.

Getting frustrated.

Thanks. Dave.

On 11/6/17, Eigeldinger Simon wrote:

...

Hi David,

You could use any linux distro. the most have those tools by default if you want to install a vm. grml isn't made for that though you could try. maybe grml2hd is still in there. though the wiki and google is a good friend on that.

I also would do that on bare metal. Better to do that that way instead over a vm because then the hd can be accessed directly.

Greetings, Simon

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Simon Eigeldinger Informatik Nebengebäude 1, OG1 ------------------------- Stadt Hohenems Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Straße 4 6845 Hohenems Österreich Tel.: +43 5576 7101-1143 Fax: +43 5576 7101-1149 E-Mail: simon.eigeldinger@hohenems.at Web: www.hohenems.at

Diese Nachricht und allfällige angehängte Dokumente sind vertraulich und nur für den/die Adressaten bestimmt. -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] Im Auftrag von David Mehler Gesendet: Sonntag, 05. November 2017 23:56 An: Blind sysadmins list Betreff: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] recovering data from a usb3 external hard drive

Hello everyone,

Thank you all for your replies. I had a bit of a crisis the past day and a half but it's done now, so I can get back to this.

I'm going to try in this order, TestDisk, photorec, then ntfsundelete from the ntfsprogs package that one was recommended by a friend of mine.

Simon, thank you for the grml links, I'm downloading now, can I run from a vm as a live environment or can I install to the vm?Have you tried any other live environments?

Thanks. Dave.

On 11/4/17, Simon Eigeldinger via Blind-sysadmins wrote:

...

Hi,

I prefer grml. it has speakup/espeakup and more tools. it also includes clonezilla, photorec, testdisk and other stuff you might find fun to play with.

Here are the latest isos:

32 bit: http://daily.grml.org/grml32-full_sid/latest/grml32-full_sid_latest.is o

64 bit: http://daily.grml.org/grml64-full_sid/latest/grml64-full_sid_latest.is o

grml accessibility page: http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=accessibility

Greetings, Simon

Am 05.11.2017 um 02:07 schrieb David Mehler:

...

Hello everyone,

Thank you. The applications photorec and TestDisk were the two I was going to try next.

What about a Linux rescue environment, something I can run from a virtual machine? I've heard of SystemRescueCD, something with a graphical environment. Is this one accessible? If not, are there others that are?

Thanks. Dave.

On 11/4/17, Simon Eigeldinger via Blind-sysadmins wrote: > Hi, > > I also got some luck with photorec. > > additionally my ntfs formatted 3 TB hdd has the following total > capacity: 2.72 TB. > those are 3,000,454,082,560 Bytes > > Greetings, > Simon > > > > greetings, > Simon > > > Am 04.11.2017 um 23:39 schrieb Anatoliy Shudrya: >> Hi Dave, >> Data recovery is very time consuming. I have previously used >> TestDisk with great success. It's a command line utility and I >> think I had to use JAWS cursor to read all prompts. I am not sure >> though if it supports 4 TB drives, haven't used it for a while. >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Blind-sysadmins >> [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf >> Of David Mehler >> Sent: Saturday, November 4, 2017 11:50 AM >> To: blind-sysadmins >> Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] recovering data from a usb3 external >> hard drive >> >> Hello, >> >> This drive is not mine, nor is the error that brought it to me. >> >> A friend of mine, I believe if the information I have is accurate, >> mistakenly thought this drive a 4TB my passport Seagate I believe, >> quick formatted it. The size is 4tb of which 3.63tb show up. >> >> I had him get another drive, this one a 4tb western digital I >> believe it's an easy store, this one also with 3.63 tb available. >> >> This format was done on a win10 machine. >> >> I've tried twice to recover anything using the free recuva program. >> Running a deep scan shows 27 files but it can't get any of them. >> Running for a better word the light scan shows the same 27 files, >> but in that case I can highlight them all, right click, choose >> recover selected. >> >> I selected the easystore drive and attempted a recovery. First >> issue it told me that I needed 3.63tb only 3.62 were available. The >> drive had some content from western digital on it, I moved it off >> the drive and tried it again. >> >> This time it said insufficient space needed 3.63tb available >> 3.63tb, numbers were identical, but it asked me if I wanted to try >> a different recovery path, which that's the only drive I've got >> that can recover such a substancial load. >> >> Then I thought well maybe when both the my passport was originally >> formatted/partitioned and accidentally quick formatted, maybe the >> cluster sizes were incompatible between the my passport and the >> easystore. >> >> So I went in to format, didn't do anything to either drive, but >> compared the cluster size, blew my theory away both have a cluster >> size >> of 4096k. >> I >> hit cancel so nothing more was done. >> >> I'm kind of stuck. It takes about a day for the initial scan, i'm >> assuming the same neartime for the recovery, this is my third >> attempt. >> >> I then got the idea of recovering each of the 27 individual files. >> Tried that and it said I didn't have permissions to perform the >> recovery operation, which makes no sense, I'm an admin on this box, >> also win10 pro, his win10 is home, but neither of those usb drives >> should be dealing with permissions, even though they're both ntfs. >> >> I'd appreciate any suggestions, I'm kind of stuck. >> >> Thanks. >> Dave. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Blind-sysadmins mailing list >> Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org >> https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Blind-sysadmins mailing list >> Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org >> https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins >> > > -- > Simon Eigeldinger > Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/domasofan/ > E-Mail: simon.eigeldinger@vol.at > ICQ: 121823966 > Jabber: domasofan@andrelouis.com > > --- > Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprüft. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > > > _______________________________________________ > Blind-sysadmins mailing list > Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org > https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins >

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- Simon Eigeldinger Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/domasofan/ E-Mail: simon.eigeldinger@vol.at ICQ: 121823966 Jabber: domasofan@andrelouis.com

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_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

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