Having trouble with mounting the hardisk

Question

My Seagate USB hard disk won't mount.

fdisk -l reports:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes  
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors  
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes  
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes  
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes  
Disk identifier: 0x0001607e

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System  
/dev/sda1   *        2048      206847      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT  
/dev/sda2          206848   163842047    81817600    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT  
/dev/sda3       163844094   976773119   406464513    5  Extended  
/dev/sda5       163844096   217092095    26624000   83  Linux  
/dev/sda6       217094144   225900543     4403200   82  Linux swap / Solaris  
/dev/sda7       225902592   583307263   178702336    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT  
/dev/sda8       583320213   976768064   196723926    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT  

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204885504 bytes  
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525167 sectors  
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes  
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes  
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes  
Disk identifier: 0x174de4c5  

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System  
/dev/sdb1   *        2048  1953521663   976759808    6  FAT16  

sudo mount -t auto /dev/sdb1 /media/newhd reports:

mount: you must specify the filesystem type  

sudo blkid reports:

/dev/sda1: LABEL="System Reserved" UUID="EA8CA5B58CA57D27" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda2: UUID="7A66B7F966B7B46B" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda5: UUID="b2c6b94a-132c-440d-95ea-33ee55d60ec9" TYPE="ext4" 
/dev/sda6: UUID="022d77c7-fc22-4dd7-b280-0fe400ae052f" TYPE="swap" 
/dev/sda7: LABEL="Study" UUID="7398578669B29A5E" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda8: UUID="43215121476DA725" TYPE="ntfs" 

Previously it was NTFS partition and due to some technical mistake it has converted to FAT16.

Answer 1

Try with these commands:

sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb1 /media/newhd
sudo mount -t fat /dev/sdb1 /media/newhd

I find strange that your disk comes with a FAT16 partition.

Answer 2

It seems you could have wiped the data. Or perhaps, just only the partition table. Let's try recovering the old partition table.

Before going on, please save your current partition table. It will help in case you screw it even more.

sudo dd if=/dev/sdb of=/root/sdb-mbr.bin bs=512 count=1

Now, let's do it. Install testdisk from the Ubuntu Software Center. Run it from a terminal:

sudo testdisk

Select your disk and choose Proceed. Then select the partition table type, most probably Intel if you're unsure. Then choose Analyze and Quick Search.

Once the program do the work, it will show the found partitions. If you see a NTFS partition, you're probably lucky. Try choosing Write to write the new partition table.

Has it become even worse? Just restore the old partition table with this command:

sudo dd of=/dev/sdb if=/root/sdb-mbr.bin bs=1 count=64 skip=446 seek=446