Lost partition table, can i trust the HDD again? (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 2 days ago by MoLoPoLY@discuss.tchncs.de to c/linuxquestions@lemmy.zip

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Probably due to a power outage, I suddenly lost access to a connected USB HDD yesterday. According to parted, I get the message “unknown partition table,” and gdisk says the GPT is corrupted. Using testdisk, I was able to copy the files to another drive and restore the partition table and mount the HDD.

Is it possible that the partition table was damaged by the power outage, or does this point to a different problem? Can I safely store data on such an HDD again, or should I replace it?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

Which filesystem are you using? Some filesystems are better at handling power failure than others, and some write a backup partition table to the disk in other locations. It could be that you were just really really unlucky, but the partition table just needs to be restored. Hard to say for sure without examining your filesystem.

[-] MoLoPoLY@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 days ago

I thought it was ext4, but it seems to be ext3. A standard file system check didn't find any errors after I restored the partition table.

this post was submitted on 25 May 2026

41 points (100.0% liked)

Linux Questions

3932 readers

13 users here now

Linux questions Rules (in addition of the Lemmy.zip rules)

stay on topic
be nice (no name calling)
do not post long blocks of text such as logs
do not delete your posts
only post questions (no information posts)

Tips for giving and receiving help

be as clear and specific
say thank you if a solution works
verify your solutions before posting them as facts.

Any rule violations will result in disciplinary actions

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip