Cannot find hard drive

Golden said:

Thanks Alan. That sounds like a rather unique situation.

Just to clarify, we don't recommend paid software if a free version will suffice....your post implied it was recommended here in the thread, or perhaps it's just the way it came across? I recommended free bootable Pw simply to see if the partitions were still accessible.

Torq2 : the Peppermint issue sounds like you never booted off the flash drive....check and list the BIOS boot options to see what options are available if you still want to pursue this.

I fully agree with your conclusion that he never actually booted from the Flash Drive.

To clarify my post - I never believed that you knowingly offered commercial software.
I thought that either the author had changed the software in a sneaky fashion,
or that Torq2 had somehow installed something different because he implied that it required payment in advance with :-

Torq2 said:

I put the partition recovery program on and it at least can see the drive. I think I may buy the program and try to recover the drive, unless you know a free program which will do it.

I have just noticed in his post #5

The program say's click on a file to save it, but I don't know where it would save to. The problem I have is that I know nothing about this stuff. I was kinda hoping that I could just click a button and all my files would be restored.

I understand the fear of clicking without knowing the results, but I am accustomed to being given the option to specify destination AFTER I indicate the desire to save - but I have the drive OFF-LINE just in-case the software by different rules.

I have an old hard drive but it is only 150gb, whereas my current drive is a 1tb, it ain't gonna fit. I just clicked on of the files and tried to save it, and it turns out I got to buy the program to do that. I will try the peppermint one and let you know. This is not looking good, I think.

It was foolish to hope to restore the files by over-writing the partition that was being recovered,
because if that fails it RUINS any possibility of a second chance with anything else.
This again indicates he was told he had to buy the software.

Although I would never attempt to restore deleted files to the partition from which they are being recovered,
I have used Minitool Bootable Wizard to detect and over-write partition tables.
My Laptop had a single HDD with about 7 partitions, most of the originals had been shrunk a bit as I decided upon each new partition that I wanted.
Minitool found about 30 boundaries where partitions had started and ended.
I had great difficulty trying to remember the size of each partition and what its purpose was.
I tentatively chose 14 out of the 30 boundaries to define latest versions of 7 partitions.
I kept on choosing and assessing until I felt the assignments were plausible,
and then I committed to write the tables and I got it right first time.

Had I got it wrong then perhaps sectors that belonged in C:\ might have appeared in D:\ or vice versa,
and launching Windows might have over-written the sectors that belonged to the other partition.
I could probably have made a second attempt at defining the boundaries so all sectors were in original partitions, but over-written sectors would have remained over-written.

I am pleased to say that I got it right first time.
I also learnt a very valuable lesson :-
APPEND or PREPEND a unique identifier of partition, such as "_C_" or "_D_" etc to the System Volume Name of each partition before you every need a Boot Rescue Tool.
Minitool and other boot repair tools of all sorts show System Volume Names.
It would have been SO MUCH EASIER FOR ME when looking at 30 potential boundaries if I had known what the drive letters had been.

Regards
Alan

Thanks Alan and Golden,

I hate posting on forums because the coments are so easily misinterpreted. The program I downloaded was free to use, but it would only recover 1gb of data. As I have a 1tb hdd I would have to buy it to be able to recover everything. It is $69 btw.

I wasn't going to try to save to the corrupted hdd, I was just saying that 1tb into 150gb doesn't go.

I tried to load peppermint from the flashdrive several times, amd each time I checked the bios to make sure it was set to boot from the drive. I also checked the flashdrive to make sure that peppermint had installed to it. I used the same usb port that I loaded the partition rcovery program from, so the port should have been working, but the pc ignored it for some reason.

I installed the 150gb hdd and put win7 on, so I'm back up and running at least. I can see all my files and have copied a couple over to the other hdd, and they are ok, so it does work.

The reason I started all this to begin with was because I was thinking of upgrading my computer. As the hdd was the lowest score on the windows base score, I thought that if I got a program that measured the hdd speed it would give me an idea as to which new hdd to buy.

I am now thinking of going ahead and buying some new componants, and will probably buy the WD black 1tb hdd, after which I plan to save the files from corrupted hdd to that.

I must admit that I have got a bit complaciant lately and had not backed anything up in ages, so it was quite a blow to loose everything.

Once again thanks for your help, hopefully it will work out ok. Alan thanks for the link I'll download it today.

Regards.

Torq2 said:

Thanks Alan and Golden,
I hate posting on forums because the coments are so easily misinterpreted. The program I downloaded was free to use, but it would only recover 1gb of data. As I have a 1tb hdd I would have to buy it to be able to recover everything. It is $69 btw.

There has been a terrible mistake.

The link you were given shows what to expect of the Minitool Bootable Flash.
That does not appear to be a free of charge downloadable, but something that is available once you have downloaded the Windows partition Recovery tool from the same site.
I do not know if the free Home version includes this Bootable Flash - not recently tried it

I do know that at the bottom of this page you CAN download a free of charge Bootable 48.34 MB ISO.
Free download Magic Partition Manager Software, partition magic alternative, free partition magic, partition magic Windows 7 and server partition software - Partition Wizard Online
You simply download that and burn to a CD
and it recovers partitions and does NOT have any interest in the amount of data.

You wrongly clicked on a totally different link within that site and downloaded
"MiniTool® Power Data Recovery Free Edition - Free to recover 1 GB data"
All in one free file recovery software could help you to recover data from formatted hard drive, damaged partition, CD/DVD disk and memory card.

Please try again with
Free download Magic Partition Manager Software, partition magic alternative, free partition magic, partition magic Windows 7 and server partition software - Partition Wizard Online

N.B.
We would of course be interested in what results LazeSoft indicates if you try it.

Hi Alan,

I downloaded both of those. Funny thing now I remember the bootable one didn't work either. I am now running Lazesoft, but it isn't looking good it has only found a couple of drives, and I have been looking at it for the past hour. I think it is only looking fo rfile on the two drives it's already found.

Hi Alan,

Well Lazesoft has found all my partitions now, however it has been stuck on 5% of reconstructing for about 3 hours now. I was wonderinf if you know if it is a very long process, or has it locked up.

Regards

Lazesoft took about 4 hours to examine a high speed SATA HDD with high speed high quality mechanism.

It would take much longer if you have :-
bad mechanism that has to re-seek-re-try ; OR
lower speed SATA/IDE/USB3/USB2

I had to shut it down, I thought it must be locked up. I ws wondering, you mention sdd drive, I've seen them but haven't really looked into them as they as so small. Would I be right in thinking that you put the operating system on it and it maybe speeds things up?