Partitions visible in disk director but not in Win Explorer (Win 7)

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  1. Posts : 92
    Win 7 64bit SP2?
       #1

    [SOLVED]Partitions visible ......but not in Win Explorer (Win 7)


    I have 3 drives in my PC - the largest of which I'd recently copied the contents of a smaller drive over to (8 partitions). This also held my old copy of XP as my backup OS. Since moving everything it wouldn't work, so I decided to reinstall XP today, but even after doing so it still wouldn't run, & when I looked closer at the drive setup I noticed there was 1Mb of unallocated space prior which I presumed was the problem.

    SO, I returned to Win 7 to sort that out, but then discovered that 6 of my 8 partitions were no longer visible. I used Partition Wizard to recover them, but while they now show in a disk management program, I can't access them nor view them in Explorer.

    Obviously getting quite desperate now to ensure I've not lost them for good as while I have some of the most vital info backed up, I certainly haven't it all given there's the guts of 400 odd Gb in the missing sections

    Any help (& encouragement) would be hugely appreciated.
    Thanks, Romayne
    Last edited by redtuiop; 28 May 2012 at 18:00.
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  2. Posts : 12,012
    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-bit
       #2

    Post a picture of what you see in Windows Disk Management.
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  3. Posts : 92
    Win 7 64bit SP2?
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Gosh that was quick !!

    Ok - I'm using 2 DMs to deal with this as each offers something the other doesn't.

    In Partition Wizard (on the right) it shows the unallocated 1 Mb before each partition (& seemingly in a lot of other places too on other drives). While it shows it, the program apparently has a bug which won't allow me to add it into any of the partitions. I've done everything the program suggested in order to recover the partitions but unsure if that's what perhaps caused this issue of extraneous space (& whether it's actually there or some sort of ghosting).

    Acronis DD on the other hand neither shows that nor makes it available to add in to any of the partitions.

    But you can see how they're all showing ok. Just unable to be accessed from within Win 7 as you can see from the WDM at the bottom.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Partitions visible in disk director but not in Win Explorer (Win 7)-ad.jpg   Partitions visible in disk director but not in Win Explorer (Win 7)-pm.jpg   Partitions visible in disk director but not in Win Explorer (Win 7)-wdm.jpg  
    Last edited by redtuiop; 28 May 2012 at 13:19.
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  4. Posts : 12,012
    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-bit
       #4

    I doubt if the 1 MB unallocated spaces have anything to do with whatever issues you have.

    But we need a picture of Windows Disk Management. None of the above pix are Disk Management.

    Type Disk Management into the start button search box and follow the link.
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  5. Posts : 92
    Win 7 64bit SP2?
    Thread Starter
       #5

    Apologies - unsure of the difference but here you go :)
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Partitions visible in disk director but not in Win Explorer (Win 7)-dm.jpg  
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  6. Posts : 12,012
    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-bit
       #6

    TikkiRo said:
    Apologies - unsure of the difference but here you go :)
    Notice that on the C partition, we can read "system, boot, page file, active, crash dump, primary".

    We can't read what it says on the D partition because of the column spacing. What does it say there other than "active"?

    Can you boot from the XP drive or do you care?

    The only problem you have is that you cannot see 6 of 8 partitions in Explorer?


    Lastly: is there some strong reason why you have that big drive chopped up into so many partitions? I'd think it would be much simpler and more space-efficient to have 2 partitions on that drive--D and E. D for XP and E for everything else, subdivided by folders for religious, programs, personal, etc.

    Clarify the above. I don't know if I can resolve your issue, but others who might would likely need answers.
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  7. Posts : 92
    Win 7 64bit SP2?
    Thread Starter
       #7

    "We can't read what it says on the D partition because of the column spacing. What does it say there other than "active"?"
    It says "Active, Healthy, Primary partition"

    "Can you boot from the XP drive or do you care?"
    No to both questions although I'd ideally like to get it working at some point in order to have an alternate OS for those times Win 7 goes pear shaped.

    "The only problem you have is that you cannot see 6 of 8 partitions in Explorer?"
    Yep - The first 3 show but the last 6 won't.

    "Lastly: is there some strong reason why you have that big drive chopped up into so many partitions? I'd think it would be much simpler and more space-efficient to have 2 partitions on that drive--D and E. D for XP and E for everything else, subdivided by folders for religious, programs, personal, etc."
    Hmm - well, I suppose somewhere along the way I read that it was better to split a drive into multiple partitions rather than just a couple, esp if a large drive, and have always done it, but it's not set in stone certainly & ultimately if it was going to be a fix of sorts I'd not worry how I achieve it - regaining the info is more important than how it's sitting on the drive.

    My other concern is that I've only got about 4 hrs max before I'm going to be hitting bed & even that's quite late, so ideally would also like to know if shutting down/rebooting is likely to cause any further issues, (if the problem hasn't been resolved beforehand).

    Thanks again for your patience & input on this problem - truly appreciated :)
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  8. Posts : 12,012
    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-bit
       #8

    I have no immediate answer to why you can't see 6 of the partitions on the large drive in Explorer. Nor a solution.

    You say you installed XP earlier today. Could you see all of your partitions prior to installing XP today?

    Was the Windows 7 drive connected when you installed XP today? I'm guessing it was.

    The XP drive appears not to be marked "system". I'd guess that's why it won't boot. Something went wrong during that installation attempt.

    I wouldn't think a shutdown overnight would have an effect, but if you are worried let it run overnight.

    There is no advantage to chopping that big drive up like that. And it is wasteful of space---with many smallish partitions, you tend to run out of space on a partition, whereas you would not if you had a single large partition.

    My inclination would be to get rid of XP at least temporarily. If Win 7 goes pear-shaped, use an imaging program to restore it, rather than rely on XP as a fall back position. Unless you have some over-riding reason to keep XP.

    I'd use a single partition on the big drive and back up my data to an external. I'm guessing you have no external to which you could temporarily offload all data on the big drive?

    I assume you have no way whatsoever of seeing all of your data on the big drive and have no backups of that data?

    Do all of your partitions now show as simple, NTFS, and basic in Disk Managment?

    Greg, WHS, or others may have ideas about how to access your data.
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  9. Posts : 92
    Win 7 64bit SP2?
    Thread Starter
       #9

    I disconnected my other 2 drives before doing the XP reinstall to make sure I didn't overwrite anything on them accidentally (hard as it should be!), & yes on the 1st attempt all the partitions were showing. When the installation finished & rebooted it came up with some error about the XP OS, which is when I figured I'd maybe try again, but I didn't bother once I spotted those unallocated spaces figuring it better to sort those out first. It was just odd that it didn't install correctly but ever since I moved everything onto this drive, there's been a problem with that XP partition which is why I ended up just reformatting it entirely & starting over.

    I do have an external drive, but stupidly haven't backed up as much as I should have done.

    I'm a webmaster & all the important data of all 3 sites I manage is on that Websites partition - I do have some of it backed up but certainly not all. Old story - takes SO long to do large backups I get impatient so give up & don't bother. So nobody to blame but myself as I'm more than aware for the need to do them.

    If I could access ALL of the partitions fully once more I think I'd be inclined to remove them all off to my old drive, & reformat the large one, & start over but differently i.e. do as you say & just have 2 or 3 and organise things differently.

    Can but hope I can get back to that point which hopefully should be possible given they ARE showing up at least in some of the Disk managers.
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  10. Posts : 12,012
    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-bit
       #10

    Stand by. I've placed a request for more assistance.
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