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300DDR

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 5, 2012
45
0
Los Angeles, CA
Backstory: I'm a data recovery technician hoping to solve this strange case. Drive arrived not spinning. Opened drive in clean room, carefully moved heads off the platters. Next problem was firmware corruption, it spun, but no sectors were readable. I was able to get around this using special data recovery hardware/software to "solve g-list corruption" on this Toshiba drive. The drive still had some platter damage but in total we imaged about 99.9% of all the sectors.


Current/main problem: After connecting clone to a Mac, it appears in Disk Utility with red text as "Virtual Whole Disk." The drive cannot mount and no data can be recovered from it.


Further Details:
* A raw scan for data in the drive indicates that it's encrypted (as no raw files can be recovered and the drive is pretty full). Client doesn't remember turning on FileVault, but seems to be the case and admits he's not computer savvy.

* The drive doesn't appear in DiskWarrior 4, but does appear in DiskWarrior 5. DW5 has an option to "unlock" the drive (further indication it's encrypted with FileVault) however none of the 6 potential passwords customer supplied are working to unlock it (error code 2).

* I don't believe customer had a Fusion Drive setup because he said Apple replaced this bad drive with a single 1TB drive (at first I thought problem may have been related to a missing Fusion drive).

This is the result from trying "Repair Disk" in DU
Code:
Verifying and repairing partition map for “ST1000DM 003-1CH162 Media”

Checking prerequisites
    
Checking the partition list

Adjusting partition map to fit whole disk as required

Checking for an EFI system partition

Checking the EFI system partition’s size

Checking the EFI system partition’s file system

Checking the EFI system partition’s folder content

Checking all HFS data partition loader spaces

Checking booter partitions

Checking booter partition disk1s3

Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.

Reviewing boot support loaders

Checking Core Storage Physical Volume partitions

Verifying storage system

Checking volumedisk1s2: Scan for Volume Headers
 
Invalid Volume Header @ 749296614912: invalid field value

disk1s2: Scan for Disk Labels

Invalid Disk Label @ 749279834112: invalid field value

Invalid Disk Label @ 749284028416: invalid field value

Invalid Disk Label @ 749288222720: invalid field value

Invalid Disk Label @ 749292417024: invalid field value

disk1s2 is not a CoreStorage volume

Storage system check exit code is 1.

Repairing storage system

Checking volumedisk1s2: Scan for Volume Headers

Invalid Volume Header @ 749296614912: invalid field value

disk1s2: Scan for Disk Labels

Invalid Disk Label @ 749279834112: invalid field value

Invalid Disk Label @ 749284028416: invalid field value

Invalid Disk Label @ 749288222720: invalid field value

Invalid Disk Label @ 749292417024: invalid field value

disk1s2 is not a CoreStorage volumeStorage system check exit code is 1.

Repairing storage system

Checking volumedisk1s2: Scan for Volume Headers

Invalid Volume Header @ 749296614912: invalid field value

disk1s2: Scan for Disk Labels

Invalid Disk Label @ 749279834112: invalid field value

Invalid Disk Label @ 749284028416: invalid field value

Invalid Disk Label @ 749288222720: invalid field value

Invalid Disk Label @ 749292417024: invalid field value

disk1s2 is not a CoreStorage volume

Storage system check exit code is 1.

Problems were encountered during repair of the partition map

Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Click Repair Disk.

--

Here are results from "diskutil list" in Terminal:

Code:
  /dev/disk1
  
     #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
  
     0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *750.2 GB   disk1
  
     1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk1s1
   
     2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         749.3 GB   disk1s2
   
     3:                 Apple_Boot                         650.0 MB   disk1s3

Results from "diskutil cs list" in Terminal:

Code:
   CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
    
     |
    
     +-- Logical Volume Group C256C4F4-D16B-441C-B595-FA047A1AA3CF
        
     =========================================================
        
     Name:         -none-
        
     Status:       Initializing
        
     Size:         0 B (0 B)
        
     Free Space:   -none-
        
     |
        
      +-< Physical Volume C9FE8139-8416-4EF1-A158-E9B27C4D5138
            
     ----------------------------------------------------
            
      Index:    18446744073709551615
            
      Disk:     disk1s2
            
      Status:   Failed
            
      Size:     -none-
---------

All of this is quite a bit over my head and is not a problem I'm at all familiar with. Anyone out there have any ideas how to get this drive repaired enough to enter the password and get the drive mounted?

Much appreciated,
Brian
 

keysofanxiety

macrumors G3
Nov 23, 2011
9,539
25,302
Unfortunately, didn't think anyone would be able to help with this one :(

Hi 300DDR, please could you try the following:

1) Open Terminal
2) Type diskutil list. Find the external volume, it should be something like '/dev/disk1s2'
3) Force-mount the volume by using sudo diskutil mount (e.g. sudo diskutil mount /dev/disk1s2)

The sudo command will prompt you for your password. You must have a password set otherwise it won't work. When you type in your password, it won't display when you type, so you'll have to type it blind and press Enter when you've done that.

I fear this won't help you with what you've described, especially if the volume is encrypted, but it's worth a try as it doesn't take too long.

Best of luck.
 

300DDR

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 5, 2012
45
0
Los Angeles, CA
Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately, it says it's FileVault or Fusion and cannot mount. It says to try to unlock, which I've done, and that fails also. Think I'll have to give up here, but appreciate your help.
 
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