Can Windows 7 recognize a Vista formatted disk

PJWJR · 25 Jan 2014

My HP Pavilion with Vista machine died recently and I purchased a refurbished HP DC7900 with Windows 7 64 bit OS on it. I put the Vista hard drive in bay 2 of the Window 7 machine expecting to access my data files. Windows 7 recognized the drive was present when I booted up but has label partition C as 'Recovery'. It on 'sees' a small part of the 500 gb drive and appears to have created a folder for recovery. I need to recover the data from the drive - how do I do that???

Barman58 · 25 Jan 2014

The Recovery partition is normal and is a remnant from the original setup from the manufacturer.

To check what is actually on the drive open the start menu, right click on the computer item and select Manage

In the management screen select Disk Management

Can Windows 7 recognize a Vista formatted disk-partitions.jpg

Check the partitions you have available on the newly installed disk - If you see more than the recovery partition you may need to assign a drive letter to the partition with your data so that it will show in windows explorer.

If you cannot see any other partitions it may be that the data is gone, and may be recoverable by a professional recovery company, which will of course be expensive.

PJWJR · 25 Jan 2014

Thanks for your help. I was able to get to all my data. That is a major relief. :)