Logical Drives disappear - how does this happen?

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  1. Posts : 6,292
    Windows 7 64 Bit Home Premium SP1
    Thread Starter
       #11

    whs said:
    dsperber said:
    whs said:
    1. This is indeed an unusual case. I could see 1 partition where the MFT was corrupted, but 2 partitions at the same time is odd.
    Probably somehow lost the "extended partition" itself (and it's really just one of the four primary partitions on the drive, re-purposed to hold "logical partitions" inside of it), or its own internal logical partition table. That would lose all of the imbedded logical partitions, however many there were.
    If I understand you right you figure that the damage was done to the extended partition and that dragged the dependent logical partition along - I guess that's possible.
    That would seem to be the case: the extended partition was corrupted, taking all the logicals contained within it. The question is how that could happen. I'm stumped.

    My wife is a bit of a technophobe. It's like pulling teeth just getting her to do Windows Updates because they "might break something". When I was using Partition Wizard she asked: "Was that on my computer?"
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  2. whs
    Posts : 26,210
    Vista, Windows7, Mint Mate, Zorin, Windows 8
       #12

    I don't know which imaging program you use. But with free Macrium you can continue to work whilst the image is being written.

    My wife is a bit of a technophobe. It's like pulling teeth just getting her to do Windows Updates because they "might break something". When I was using Partition Wizard she asked: "Was that on my computer?"
    I know what you are talking about. I have to maintain the wife's laptops too. And she has 5 of them. One to run her crafting cutting machine, one little 10" for travel, one to work in FL, one to work in NY and one to work in Germany. A real full time job.
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  3. Posts : 6,292
    Windows 7 64 Bit Home Premium SP1
    Thread Starter
       #13

    Ah! Another of my idiosyncrasies.
    I never understood the concept of creating a disk image of an operating system while it is running. To me an operating system is changing dynamically (particularly if you are using it), so what files are being imaged, exactly?

    So I always run Acronis from a boot disk and image the OS partition and any Programs or System partition while the are "off".
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  4. Posts : 53,363
    Windows 10 Home x64
       #14

    How many changes do you make in the 10 minutes Acronis takes to make an image?

    A Guy
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  5. Posts : 6,292
    Windows 7 64 Bit Home Premium SP1
    Thread Starter
       #15

    I see it as a version of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle!

    Uncertainty principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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  6. Posts : 4,049
    W7 Ultimate SP1, LM19.2 MATE, W10 Home 1703, W10 Pro 1703 VM, #All 64 bit
       #16

    How old is the HDD?

    Perhaps it is starting to fail.
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  7. Posts : 6,292
    Windows 7 64 Bit Home Premium SP1
    Thread Starter
       #17

    It is "only" 4 years old. That is certainly a possibility. But I ran the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostics on it and everything passed.
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  8. Posts : 4,049
    W7 Ultimate SP1, LM19.2 MATE, W10 Home 1703, W10 Pro 1703 VM, #All 64 bit
       #18

    TVeblen said:
    It is "only" 4 years old. That is certainly a possibility. But I ran the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostics on it and everything passed.
    One of my 2 TB HDDs started playing up last April (~3 years old).

    It would sometimes vanish completely from Windows Explorer and Disk Management.
    The WD test tool found a handful of dead sectors, but it reported nothing else.
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  9. Posts : 6,292
    Windows 7 64 Bit Home Premium SP1
    Thread Starter
       #19

    No dead sectors on this one. Every line passes.
      My Computer


  10. Arc
    Posts : 35,373
    Microsoft Windows 10 Pro Insider Preview 64-bit
       #20

    TVeblen said:

    My question is "how does this happen"? Any guesses as to what could have caused this?
    and

    Solution is known, but not the originating cause. I am also curious to know what may wipe up only the logicals in a HDD with their volume names and drive letters.
      My Computer


 
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