I booted up my computer this morning only to find that my 'D' partition has disappeared! I can see the partition in disk management but the drive letter has gone and when I try to assign a letter it gives me an error. The partition has all my downloads and tools on it so I really need to recover if possible!
Try asigning a drive letter with this - EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition
Why do you make your OS partition 342 GB? Windows 7 just needs 16 plus whatever your gonna install.
That programme wont work on 64bit Windows. My 'C' drive has the OS and all installed programmes and games etc on it
Change drive letter and paths...
Format...
Delete Volume...
Properties
All the rest are greyed out
It doesn't think it is formatted.
Any idea what may have caused that?
Do you have a partition app. , like Paragon - and what does it say?
I forgot to mention I installed Partition Magic yesterday but it wouldnt work (an error was coming up the program wouldnt start) so I uninstalled it again.
Elevated CMD > Diskpart > select disk > select partition > Assign?
Partition Magic hoses NT6 systems - it's got to be more than a coincidence that you just installed it.
Seems it tried to move the start sectors and Windows has lost track of what is going on.
3 possible solutions :
1. get a decent partition manger - Paragon is my choice. Shrink the unrecognsed partition a little then extend it back. That often cures these kind of errors.
2. Use Diskpart to shrink and extend it a little as above - but I suspect Diskpart won't recognise it as being formatted.
3. Start to do a clean install from the 7 dvd, when you get to the select partition screen, choose Drive Options (advanced) , shrink that partition and extend. Abort the installation.
There is one solution, I think it will work for you. It worked for me in the same situation as yours.
Put the drive back under any winxp os, then you will find the partition read/write able. Copy the files you need from there to anyother harddisk! I then put the drive back under seven, delete the partition D, re-assign the partition D, copy back all the files.
Quote