[ubuntu-in] Problems with USB driven External HD

[Mallikarjun]

On 01/02/2011 06:13 AM, Ramnarayan.K wrote:
> Hi
>
> here's wishing every one a very happy, creative, sourcefull new year 2011.
>
> To start with i have a query about a bad HD (500 Gig)
>
> Its a USB connected (and powered )  transcend casing with it think a
>
> It has about 8 or 9 partitions - i had originally bought it as a 
> replacement drive for my 80 gig HD so had prepared it with a windows 
> section, two Linux OS sections, a large home, a large data back up etc.
>
> I never got around to using this as a replacment for various reasons.
>
> The transcend casing has a funny way of working - the usb cable has 
> two inputs - one for power and one for data - and if ever the power 
> section is not inserted (into the computer) then the externl HD tends 
> to crash - and i think my not using this power usb cable resulted in 
> the hd crashing and getting spoilt.
>
> Now when i insert it i get the following error message
>
> Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 32: mount: wrong fs type, 
> bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb8,
>        missing codepage or helper program, or other error
>        In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
>        dmesg | tail  or so
>
> when i dmesg this is what i get
>
>
> $ dmesg |tail
> [25026.733113]  sdb: sdb1 sdb3 < sdb5 sdb6 sdb7 sdb8 sdb9 >
> [25026.951055] sd 18:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
> [25026.951064] sd 18:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
> [25032.529044] kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
> [25032.537121] EXT3-fs warning: maximal mount count reached, running 
> e2fsck is recommended
> [25032.548251] EXT3 FS on sdb5, internal journal
> [25032.548258] EXT3-fs: recovery complete.
> [25032.548263] EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
> [25033.894657] EXT4-fs (sdb1): barriers enabled
> [25064.116064] usb 1-2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and 
> address 20
>
> **
> It seems the HD may not be long term usable
>
> so my questions are
>
> 1. How do i verify what is wrong with the disk (what diagnostics software)
>
I don't know answer for this
> 2.  what is the best way to recover the data
> test disk ?? is there any thing else
>
With my experience, testdisk is the best tool for partition recovery.
If you have some important files to recover and you failed to recover 
partitions, then try photorec/foremost.

> any other advice
>
> thanks
> ram
>