# Recovering Data From Damaged, Failing or Formatted Hard Drive
Author: i12bretro
Keywords: Linux,Ubuntu,PhotoRec,TestDisk,Computer Forensics,Failed Hard Drive,Hard Disk,Photo Recovery,Failing Hard Disk,File Recovery,Data Recovery,Failing Hard Drive,Failing Disk Drive,Failing HDD,HDD,Hard Drive,Storage,System Administrator,How To,Tutorial,i12bretro

I had some friends reach out to me recently after their external backup hard drive had stopped working. After trying some Windows tools and some utilities in Hiren's Boot CD I decided to take one last attempt using a Ubuntu 20.02 flash drive and some Linux utilities......was I successful?

## Commands Used for Reference

- sudo apt-get update
- sudo apt-get upgrade
- sudo apt-get install testdisk
- sudo dpkg -i ./testdisk_7.1-5_amd64.deb
- sudo fdisk -l
- sudo testdisk /path/to/storage/device
- sudo photorec /path/to/storage/device