Troubleshooting an Old Windows HDD: Access Issues on Fedora

Greetings, tech enthusiasts! I’m currently navigating a tricky situation with an older internal hard drive retrieved from a previous Windows laptop, and I’m reaching out for your expertise. My system is running Fedora alongside Windows, and my primary goal is to access my valuable files stored on this drive. However, I’ve run into a few substantial hurdles.

Current Situation

When I execute the lsblk command, I can see the device listed as /dev/sda, alongside its partitions (sda1, sda2, sda3, sda4). Yet, I’m faced with a notable absence of any filesystem type information (FSTYPE). Additionally, when I use the blkid command, it fails to show UUIDs or filesystem details for those partitions.

Attempting to run ntfsfix on the drive yields an error—”Error opening ‘/dev/sdaX’: No such device or address.” Even more concerning is that TestDisk does not recognize /dev/sda at all; it only identifies my primary SSD located at /dev/nvme0n1.

This particular hard drive was operational in another laptop running Windows prior to its removal.

Steps Taken

In my efforts to resolve the situation, I’ve attempted several approaches:

• Manually running TestDisk on /dev/sda didn’t yield any results; the drive remains unlisted.
• Verified the physical connections, confirming they are intact since lsblk detects the drive.
• Tried multiple tools, including ntfsfix, blkid, mounting via the terminal, and the Disks GUI tool, but none have provided a solution.

Potential Culprits

At this point, I have speculated a few possible causes for the accessibility issues:

1. The partition table or filesystem might be corrupted.
2. There could be an issue stemming from Windows not shutting down properly, potentially linked to Fast Startup or Hibernation mode.
3. The drive itself could be failing, which would be the most concerning scenario.

Seeking Solutions

Now, I’m considering my options for recovering files from this problematic hard drive. I have a few questions for anyone who may have tackled a similar challenge:

• Would it be beneficial to connect the HDD to a Windows machine instead?
• Are tools like GParted, ddrescue, or PhotoRec better alternatives for Data Recovery?
• Could there be underlying hardware or power issues