Partitian Wizard not picking up on unallocated disk

mikasso · 12 Oct 2014

Hi my Toshiba 2TB External Hard drive isn't coming up in My Computer, but it is saying it's all fine in Device Management although it is Unallocated in Disk Management.
So I'm using Partition Wizard Home Edition to fix the partition, or so I hoped. The program wont pick up on the device's unallocation, what it shows is this:

Partitian Wizard not picking up on unallocated disk-partition.png

And when I do Partition Recovery Wizard on that disk, my options for it to begin recovery is this:

Partitian Wizard not picking up on unallocated disk-partition3.png

.

After it has found the files on that section it shows this:

Partitian Wizard not picking up on unallocated disk-partition2.png

.

Obviously when I tick the boxes for the supposedly recovered files they come up fine on the disk, but I still cant access the unallocated disk or get it to show up for me to fix.
Any tips, hints, tricks, etc would be greatly appreciated as the hard drive is filled with photos and videos I really don't want to loose and that was my back up drive of them, so they currently don't exist anywhere else.

ICIT2LOL · 13 Oct 2014

Hello and welcome mikasso now that screen of PW at the bottom of your post is showing that drive as a 1TB drive and not a 2TB? Seems to me to be an error on that drive and for the record I am not a fan of Toshiba drives - had many problems in their machines a d external in the past.
Now if you want to recover the data you mention you could use this

BOOTABLE UBUNTU

Make a bootable Ubuntu disk http://www.ubuntu.com/download

Set the BIOSto boot from the optical when the machine boots it will show you a screen with TRY or INSTALL >select TRY.You can of course remove the hard driveand any other drives when doing this as if the optical alone is the only driveleft in the machine then the BIOS willonly find it to boot from.

When it isfinished - it takes very little time you will get a screen like in the pic .

Open thedrive you want > User and dig down until you get to the data / settings you may be able to copy / paste the materialyou want to an external source or other installed drive doing this.

I am notsure if it will but I have recovered tons of data etc using this method both on"dead" or just plain drives that you cannot get data from using Windows. see pic for what it looks like and once the data is safe you can run some drive tests on the external.

mikasso · 16 Oct 2014

Sorry, I did mean 1TB not 2TB.
After restarting my laptop, it picked up the drive. But unfortunately now all it says after doing the Partition Wizard is "Bad Disk".
Stumped as to how to get my files off of it now that I still cant access them after doing that.

ICIT2LOL · 16 Oct 2014

Ok mate give the Ubuntu ditty a try if there is data there it will pick it up. If it cannot then the drive is probably cactus.

Having said that I suppose first thing to try would be a drive test now the usual one we try first up is this
SeaTools for Windows | Seagate

and I use Partition Wizard to do a surface test too it is more of a physical test of the platter surface and to some extent the read / write heads see pic

mikasso · 16 Oct 2014

Thanks for your help! I'll give the SeaTools a shot before I head onto the Ubuntu tool.
I cant do the Surface test as it isn't giving me the option for that disk:

Not sure whether that's a sign the hard drive is done for or not though lol.

ICIT2LOL · 16 Oct 2014

No mate I think you have just clicked on the partition you need to click on the drive symbol whichever will turn a buff colour the surface test will be available when the drive with the letter has been chosen. just go back to that pic I sent you will see the colour of the drive lettered part.

PS it does take a while to do