Three partitions of my hard drive disappeared after windows repair

R

Hi friends,

I got a Disk boot failure for which I did a windows 10 repair using its DVD. the windows 10 recovered and started working but I found that 3 partitions of my hdd for nearly 600GB were missing. I checked disk management where they are shown as unallocated. These were logical partitions having data of nearly 300GB.

How can I recover these partitions?

Please help.
*ibb.co/m0xUy7

R

I tried to recover the partitions and I was able to recover one partition but another 2 partitions are currently in unallocated space of 545 GB but Easeus partition can't recover it. Hence, need help in its recovery.

W

Free Partition Recovery Tool | MiniTool Software Solution

If above also fails then try recuva to at least recover data if not partition structure.Also keep a secondary hdd ready as trying to recover data to same hdd(in case partition recovery fails) will overwrite the existing lost data.

R

I tried again and now this error. I can't understand which partition it is talking about?

R

I tried by deleting/skipping one partition to recovery but when I clicked 'apply' the PC crashed back to DISK BOOT FAILURE. I again tried to recover the PC using my system disk but this time it is unable to recover the PC startup.

Please help.....

R

Waiting, No help......

W

Your partition setup is seriously messed up,how many partitions did you originally made anyway.It is recommended to make no more than 4 partitions.I suggest to use explore partition option in minitool to copy all data from lost partitions to another hdd.Then format & repartition your hdd(this time make only 4 partitions,no need to make so many partitions when you can simply make folders named snaps,softwares,games etc in a single partition labelled "personal data") & install win 10 fresh.

R

whitestar_999 said:
Your partition setup is seriously messed up,how many partitions did you originally made anyway.It is recommended to make no more than 4 partitions.I suggest to use explore partition option in minitool to copy all data from lost partitions to another hdd.Then format & repartition your hdd(this time make only 4 partitions,no need to make so many partitions when you can simply make folders named snaps,softwares,games etc in a single partition labelled "personal data") & install win 10 fresh.

Thankyou very much for the reply. I was'nt aware that not more than 4 partition should be there. Currently I was having 8 partitions.

Till the time I can recover my lost partitions, I will not be in a position to format it else my data will be lost.

Please suggest me how to recover those lost partition. The data is still showing when I check it through minitools but it says that I should purchase it before recovering the partitions. Please help....

Is there any other free software through which I can recover my lost partitions....

how many primary partitions do you have in total ? i think you should convert your primary partitions to logical ones except the partition where windows is installed. Then try to recover the lost partition with the tools mentioned in other posts. I personally prefer easeus tool as it is simple to operate.

Try TestDisk, Find and Mount , Lazesoft recovery. These are lesser known. Check if they are compatible with Windows 10.
As well known apps like EaseUs and Minitool have not worked, you can give it a try to recover the data rather than partitions.

While this part of my post does not address your issue, just wondering if there's any specific reason you opted for MBR disk? Is your motherboard equipped with UEFI firmware? If yes and since you have Windows 10, I suggest you go for UEFI Boot with GPT partition scheme. The logical drives concept of MBR is jerky as it maintains a linked list kind of tracking since MBR can hold info for only 4 partitions.

R

patkim said:
Try TestDisk, Find and Mount , Lazesoft recovery. These are lesser known. Check if they are compatible with Windows 10.
As well known apps like EaseUs and Minitool have not worked, you can give it a try to recover the data rather than partitions.

While this part of my post does not address your issue, just wondering if there's any specific reason you opted for MBR disk? Is your motherboard equipped with UEFI firmware? If yes and since you have Windows 10, I suggest you go for UEFI Boot with GPT partition scheme. The logical drives concept of MBR is jerky as it maintains a linked list kind of tracking since MBR can hold info for only 4 partitions.

rijinpk1 said:
how many primary partitions do you have in total ? i think you should convert your primary partitions to logical ones except the partition where windows is installed. Then try to recover the lost partition with the tools mentioned in other posts. I personally prefer easeus tool as it is simple to operate.

Thanks for the help. I was having 7 partitions. Did'nt knew that can't have more than 4 on a HDD. I was also unaware of MBR disk.

The current situation is that my PC was not starting hence I had to use the Win10 to be installed on a partition which was working perfectly by formating the same. I have also reduced a partition and shifted the data to another partition.

As I have only one HDD of 1 TB, I am not able to format the whole drive so recovery is the only option. Will try above today and get back.

W

Did you try the suggestion in my PM?

Did'nt knew that can't have more than 4 on a HDD

You can have max 4 primary partitions or 3 primary + 1 extended on MBR. Within extended, you can create as many logical drives as you want and each will be perceived as a partition from layman perspective.

W

Still it is better not to make more than 4 partitions/drives(GPT or MBR) unless absolutely necessary.It keeps the disk layout neat & less confusions during partition resizing or recovery operations.

On an MBR disk I personally prefer to avoid logical partitions as much as possible (unless I want to go for dual boot Windows with Linux) as I find the whole concept of logical drives very jerky.

It appears that OP is under a wrong impression that one cannot create more than 4 partitions. I would recommend OP to spend some time learning about partition schemes mainly MBR & GPT & boot modes like legacy & UEFI by further online reading. There are plenty of guides available on the internet.

W

Yes but not everyone has the free time to learn intricacies of partitioning schemes.If a simple statement like "make only 4 partitions" makes life simpler then so be it.

@whitestar_999 Yes certainly. I just thought of clarifying on the assumption made by OP

Did'nt knew that can't have more than 4 on a HDD

Meaning changes between can't & shouldn't.

OP, This may also be time for you to invest in backups. I think every one who want's a PC or a laptop should set aside some budget for backup solutions. Operating systems and drives fail. It's not a question of IF but WHEN.

R

whitestar_999 said:
Did you try the suggestion in my PM?

Yes I tried it. But when I clicked 'apply' it asked for reboot and when my PC rebooted, my partition on which my OS was working got deleted and I got DISK BOOT FAILURE again.

I tried recovery via DVD but it said no OS. Hence, I had no option but to install the OS again on an unallocated space by deleting my old recoverable partition.

As after office, I don't have much time, I will be doing other things today night and will try to recover the earlier data and transfer the recovered files and other data to partitions working and then will be merging the partitions to form only 4 partitions.

W

I think chances of successful recovery of all data is quite low now.You should have tried recuva from the beginning instead of trying to recover partitions.Most likely when you used win 10 recovery option it resized/moved some partition boundaries resulting in this mess.For future reference never do any write operation on a hdd from which you are trying to recover data(aka installing/repairing anything or recovering data on same hdd,recovering partition should be used only if it successfully shows all partitions in original state in preview before recovery).

R

whitestar_999 said:
I think chances of successful recovery of all data is quite low now.You should have tried recuva from the beginning instead of trying to recover partitions.Most likely when you used win 10 recovery option it resized/moved some partition boundaries resulting in this mess.For future reference never do any write operation on a hdd from which you are trying to recover data(aka installing/repairing anything or recovering data on same hdd,recovering partition should be used only if it successfully shows all partitions in original state in preview before recovery).

Ok thanks, will still try to recover. Else....God is Great.

Else making only 4 partitions (logical) will be fine for future?

W

Just create 4 partitions(C,D,E,F) & buy a portable hdd for backup of important stuff/possible recovery(1TB portable costs ~3.5k now-a-days).

Else making only 4 partitions (logical) will be fine for future?

I don't understand what do you mean by 'logical' here? I believe you mean the logical partitions that are created within Extended partition.

If you still want to stick with MBR partition scheme, just create 3 primary partitions. 1 for OS and other 2 for data. If you still prefer logical partitions, just create 3 primary + 1 logical. Do not create multiple logical partitions.

R

Can anyone share a pic of their HDD partitions to be precise....

W

@patkim you are confusing him by talking about logical/extended/primary etc.

@rohitshakti_sehgal just use win 7/8.1/10 dvd or bootable pendrive to install the same way you were doing earlier & just make 3 more partitions(4th aka C drive is automatically created by windows OS install).So after install & partitioning your computer should show 4 hdd drives(e.g.C,D,E,F & G(dvd drive) though dvd drive letter may be different).

@rohitshakti_sehgal - Looks like you are not clear about what is a primary and what's a logical partition. That's all right.
See this snapshot below.

E F & G are Blue in color. They are primary partitions. Just created as Simple Volumes. You see H in green, this is Logical partition. By default when you create 3 primary partitions from within Windows Disk management took, because MBR holds information about 4 max, Windows by default shall create next and last one as Extended Partition and put the next partition inside it as Logical. This is in the interest of the user if they want more partitions after max limit of 4 created as logical within extended.

See the next pic in which I have deleted logical H but the space for extended still remains as free space.

This concept of primary and logical does not exists on GPT partition scheme that goes hand in hand with UEFI Boot and Windows 7 64 and above.

R

I have converted some deleted partitions to logical partitions. The images of the same are attached. I am trying to recover the files via recuva. Please also suggest how to use recuva properly for the recovery as per the image attached.

Please suggest what next.... After the recovery, I will be merging partitions to make only 4 logical partitions out of current 5.

R

patkim said:
@rohitshakti_sehgal - Looks like you are not clear about what is a primary and what's a logical partition. That's all right.
See this snapshot below.

E F & G are Blue in color. They are primary partitions. Just created as Simple Volumes. You see H in green, this is Logical partition. By default when you create 3 primary partitions from within Windows Disk management took, because MBR holds information about 4 max, Windows by default shall create next and last one as Extended Partition and put the next partition inside it as Logical. This is in the interest of the user if they want more partitions after max limit of 4 created as logical within extended.

See the next pic in which I have deleted logical H but the space for extended still remains as free space.

This concept of primary and logical does not exists on GPT partition scheme that goes hand in hand with UEFI Boot and Windows 7 64 and above.

I searched the internet and found that most use MBR system for partitioning 1 TB HDD.

W

MBR system is used not because of size(as long as size is 2TB or less,for over 2TB hdd GPT is must) but because of booting convenience as many ppl preferred it over GPT as system boot disk.

Merge your current partitions labelled D(156GB),E(174GB) & current unallocated 99GB into one single partition.

Follow this suggestion (for future) if any only if you are comfortable and you know what you are doing.

There are free tools that enable you to back up & restore MBR. E.g. MBRBackup. (Assuming you want to create MBR partition scheme) After you are completely done with your system like whatever recovery attempts, reformat, reinstall, repartition and populating your data, then run this small program and save the MBR on a pen drive and keep it safe.

Do this every time you make changes to partitions like delete, add, merge, shrink etc. After last partition changes latest MBR backup be taken.

Now in future for any reasons if the partition table gets messed up (at MBR level) and you are at least able to boot into Windows you can restore the MBR from backup. You may also be able to run it from some Windows based rescue disks, but I have never checked that much.

This will re-enable the MBR partition structure as it was originally and hopefully (though cannot be guaranteed) you be able to get back your partitions with data intact if that was not destroyed earlier.

Caution to be taken while using such tools – Keep only one disk physically connected when using such tools, even if you have more than 1. This way chances of goof up are minimal. Also note that many were written long back, they may not have been tested with Windows 10.

Use this as a last resort when all other attempts have failed and you are left with no option but reformat and repartition.
This tool did help me personally on my old MBR system when I landed in a similar situation as yours.

Better – Invest in backup solutions.

W

I think a better option would be to use Macrium Reflect free & make a system image of C drive which contains the mbr by default.Most likely a situation when partitions are messed up is also the situation when windows won't boot(just like in this case) so simply restoring the backup would solve both windows & partition issue.In fact this mess arise only after running of win 10 repair dvd which messed up the partition layout.If @op had a system image he would have to simply restore it & everything would be back to normal.

^yes certainly. The MBR backup is recommended in situations where one does not invest in full backup solutions, or does not have enough separate disk space to hold full system image. It just holds 512 bytes as a BIN file safely elsewhere on a pen drive.

R

whitestar_999 said:
I think a better option would be to use Macrium Reflect free & make a system image of C drive which contains the mbr by default.Most likely a situation when partitions are messed up is also the situation when windows won't boot(just like in this case) so simply restoring the backup would solve both windows & partition issue.In fact this mess arise only after running of win 10 repair dvd which messed up the partition layout.If @op had a system image he would have to simply restore it & everything would be back to normal.

Thanks to you, patkim and rijinpk1 for helping me out.

Even though the system was formatted and Windows 10 was again installed, I was able to recover 65% of my important data.

I was wrong as when the first time the error had occurred and I had recovered my windows, at that time itself I should have transferred the data to DVDs as I was not having another HDD. But still whatever happens, happens for a reason.

I have now reduced my partitions to only 4 which is shown in the attached snap. One thing which I still could not understand is my partition named 'Yash backup & movies' is not showing the HDD state i.e. how much space is empty like others, WHY?

If any other thing which I should do, please suggest for my HDD. Currently I need another external hdd, which I will try to buy soon.

Once again thanks for your help.....

W

Drive Disk Space Info Missing on Drives • r/techsupport

Rename your F and G drive (right click the drive and select rename) to something shorter and you'll get your "x GB free of y GB" text back.

The drive info in This PC only displays a maximum of three lines of info in that view. The names of your F and G drives are long enough that they wrap to the second line leaving only enough space to display the usage bar.

Didn't knew that too long name for a drive can cause such an issue though I knew about & have faced the issue of too long file path(aka more than 260 characters). Rename your F drive to something smaller.

R

whitestar_999 said:
Drive Disk Space Info Missing on Drives • r/techsupport

Didn't knew that too long name for a drive can cause such an issue though I knew about & have faced the issue of too long file path(aka more than 260 characters). Rename your F drive to something smaller.

W

Is your problem solved now?