Three partitions of my hard drive disappeared after windows repair

[rohitshakti_sehgal]

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

 

[rohitshakti_sehgal]

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.

 

[whitestar_999]

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.

 

[rohitshakti_sehgal]

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

 

[rohitshakti_sehgal]

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.....

 

[rohitshakti_sehgal]

Waiting, No help......

 

[whitestar_999]

Your partition setup is seriously messed up,how many partitions did you originally made anyway.It is recommended to make no more than 4 partitions.I suggest to use explore partition option in minitool to copy all data from lost partitions to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.

 

[rohitshakti_sehgal]

Your partition setup is seriously messed up,how many partitions did you originally made anyway.It is recommended to make no more than 4 partitions.I suggest to use explore partition option in minitool to copy all data from lost partitions to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....

 

[rijinpk1]

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.

 

[patkim]

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.

 

[rohitshakti_sehgal]

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.

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.

 

[whitestar_999]

Did you try the suggestion in my PM?

 

[patkim]

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.

 

[whitestar_999]

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.

 

[patkim]

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.

 

[whitestar_999]

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.

 

[patkim]

@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.

 

[rohitshakti_sehgal]

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.

 

[whitestar_999]

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).

 

[rohitshakti_sehgal]

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?