I’ve used testdisk in the past to successfully recover ±1.5TB worth of deleted files. And after that ±500GB data from a physically damaged USB HDD:
Would it not be somehow more Shakespearian; to be, or not? Is it dead, or not? Nevermind, I don’t wish to cause a super-division of the topic. Cheers.
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Yes I’ve tried, but it doesn’t boot.
Would you recomment it even for newbies? 
I can’t get hirens iso to run in my bootable pendrive. I’ve tried using ventoy, ImageWriter and Bootqt. I don’t know how to run Windows if not this way. That file system check really can not be done in Manjaro?
… not with a Windows native program
If you need to use Manjaro, a Windows VM and passing through the USB port where the drive is connected is the only option.
Way too much work for this task - in my opinion.
If you don’t already have a Windows VM …
but even this is rather easy to deploy - Microsoft itself supplies ready made VM images ready to be booted up and used - no need to do the Windows install procedure.
It is called that name for a reason, I suppose (Hirens Boot CD).
No idea why even Ventoy cannot boot the Hirens iso.
They probably have instructions on how to deploy/put to use the iso.
I didn’t look - and have never used it (no need).
I’m not sure whether there are different modes (BIOS/UEFI) with Ventoy - whether you can install it to use one or the other. Perhaps that would make the difference?
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Works fine by me
Maybe this? I have everything uefi.
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Possibly useful here is MediCat USB (with Ventoy at its core) which has been handy at times. Scroll down at that link to find both Linux (bash) and Windows (batch) Installers for the main USB preparation. The Downloads section links to the main archive containing a host of tools for varying scenarios – it’s large, so expect it to take a while. Extract that archive to the (32 GB or larger) USB drive, and it’s complete.
There will surely be something useful in this kit. Cheers.
It is 24 GB. Compressed.
If you follow the step-by-step to the letter, then yes. I was new too the first time I used it.
Well, I still am, but now I’ve got a bit more experience at being a newbie.
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Yes, indeed it is, as it contains many tools, including the Hirens Boot CD that you’re so fond of (unless I added that myself).
USB size recommendation changed to 32GB in my previous post; as it should have been. I set mine to a 64GB drive to allow space for Debian, FreeBSD, Windows 10/11 ISO’s which tend to be large in comparison to Arch, and Manjaro.
I finally got Hirens to run, but have no idea how to run this chdsk, I know it is a manjaro forum but if anyone can suggest a safe link where I can search for how to do this HDD Recovery, I’d appreciate.
I presume you can open up a command line window in that Hirens environment — I am sorry, but I have no experience with that — and then you must run…
chkdsk the-drive-letter-here: /f
I don’t know what drive letter it will assign to that volume. 
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It worked! Everything worked. Windows have made it in 2 minutes. But still wondering here if someday it will be something possible-to-do in linux. I’m new to linux and don’t post here too much, but I’ve never expected someone would tell me to go to Windows.
Its proprietary stuff doing proprietary things.
There isnt much to do about it. NTFS should simply be avoided for the pile of garbage it is.
When you must use it, use its native environment for fixing - windoze.
Do Not trust tools like ntfsfix which will not be capable, and will instead likely further damage the filesystem.
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Oh I really don’t understanding not even a bit about this file things. I didn’t know there’s a big list of file types. I mean I don’t know how related is nfts to windows. lol
It was funny too, because m$oft went out of their way to make their own proprietary filesystems … that required defragging because the structure created fragmentation. Just silly.
And ntfs is from … 1993?
Anyhoo heres a big table:
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