Windows 7: C partition just disappeared? along with my OS

My computer last night randomly shut off while loading a tv show off youtube. Upon restarting windows failed to boot. when prompted with restore and recovery it failed. Unable to access safe mode and when it says it is recovering it just says it is finished with no progress restarts to no avail.



Upon looking at command prompt diskpart, My C partition(30gb) no longer is visible or exists. this is where my Windows seven was stored. So i now only have my E drive partition which is a (1 tb drive) Repairs do not work, the only option I have is to install on my E drive which warns me it will overwrite my data. I would like my c drive back and be able to boot successfully. Sorry if anything said doesn't make sense or is incorrect I would appreciate help as I greatly need it.

Hello runel and welcome to Seven Forums.

This previous Seven Forums thread might help you out.

my partitions disappeared..

If still no joy you may have better luck recovering the missing partition by using the free MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition.

Best Free Partition Manager Freeware for Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP 32 bit & 64 bit. MiniTool Free Partition Manager Software Home Edition.

The instructions for recovering a partition are here:

Partition Recovery by using Partition Wizard to recover lost & deleted partitions for Windows.

Before doing anything can you access system restore to return your computer to an earlier date/time?

IF system does not boot and even booting from windows 7 media in repair mode doesnt see the drive i think system restore will not work.

first of all you need to make sure that it is not hardware failure
is that drive only 30GB or is it a partition of larger drive? (if so does other partition of same drive can be accessed)
does bios detect your drive?

The drive is only 30gbs. I had almost nothing on it save from windows 7 and a few other things.

I cannot access system restore and upon trying to start safe mode it prompts an install of windows.

does bios detect your drive? First you need to make sure if the drive is working maybe it died.
i think 30gb drive is old so hardware failure is a possibility...
if it is hardware failure, system restore will not work (because system restore saves data on same disk)
to restore system you need image backup on other HDD and restore to other HDD.
if you dont have backups
reintall windows on new HDD.. i would think 30Gb HDD is slow (if its not SSD)

If HD is seen in BIOS, run maker's HD Diagnostic extended CD scan to see if it can be repaired. It might regain enough functionality to copy your files out: Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console

If it is not seen, you can boot free Partition Wizard bootable CD to see if it sees the HD, run a File System Check if so to see if it will respond. If not and it is seen by PW, there are other steps here to try when Windows 7 fails to boot so that you know everything possible has been done. I would run the Partition Recovery Wizard if any are missing on PW map.

If it's not possible to recover the old HD, you can use PW CD to shrink the larger HD from the left by enough to reinstall Windows 7 there. You can then transfer data into the User folders while using PW to Resize the data partition smaller and the Windows 7 partition larger, or just link the data from it's partition to a Windows 7 Library - Include a Folder - Windows 7 Forums

It would be better to use a Partition Manager Recovery tool to fix this problem. By using this tool you can easily recover your lost and deleted partitions.

I also faced this problem before and i managed to recover my C: drive using its Bootable CD.