Help - Disk Managment Says Healthy Primary Partition - TestDisk Says ?

How did you launch check disk? Did you set to fix errors? (chkdsk f: /f)

The files on disk F: were created and saved from your computer?

As you say you can access new folder not old it sounds that simply you have no rights on the old folders were they created by another user or pc you should just need to take ownership Take Ownership Shortcut

Thank you for your replies.

No, I have not done a clean/repair install since mid-2014.

PhotoRec found files I could not see when I logged the drive in ZTreeWin at the root.

I encountered problems with this data only disk after I updated an installation of Windows 10 that I completed in July 2016 in order to meet the 'deadline' set by Microsoft for upgrading from 7 to 10. The installation is on a separate SSD that I only access by physically disconnecting the system disk for Win7 and connecting the one for Win10.

In January I read an article suggesting that it might be 'impossible' to update my installation unless I acted promptly, so I did. I failed to disconnect my data disk and Microsoft elected, with out asking as far as I know, to create a new folder called Windows10Upgrade into which it transferred these two files:

F:\Windows10Upgrade\17134.112.180619-1212.rs4_release_svc_refresh_CLIENTCONSUMER_RET_x64FRE_en-us.esd
F:\Windows10Upgrade\products.xml

When the upgrade was complete I could no longersave files to my data drive without locking up both Win7 and Win10. I recollect that I ran chkdsk on both when a prompt appeared during the boot process and it made some changes and declared everything 'fixed.' That resulted in my again being able to use the drive. Once I learned that I did not want to write to the data disk, I purchased a new data disk. I've saved very little data on it. I've used it only to track my use of PhotoRec and TestDisk. I have about 15 GB of recovered *.jpg files.

On the TestDisk forum I read that I should 'try TestDisk' first. That eventually led to this post.

thanks,
baumgrenze

When the upgrade was complete I could no longer save files to my data drive without locking up both Win7 and Win10.

That's a known problem with the "Fast Startup" feature introduced in Win8/10. I'm guessing you probably didn't disable "Fast Startup" before rebooting into Win7, so it caused file system corruption.

"Fast Startup" is a sort of hybrid hibernation feature which does not fully shut down Win10 when you turn the computer off. It's designed to give noobs the impression Win10 boots faster than previous OSes, when in fact it's actually starting up from a hibernated state.

The problem is all that hibernation smoke-and-mirrors will mess with other OSes in a multi-boot system, resulting in corruption of the file system. You can safely multi-boot if you disable "Fast Startup", but you're pretty much guaranteed to have trouble if you don't.

PhotoRec found files I could not see when I logged the drive in ZTreeWin at the root.
[...]
I have about 15 GB of recovered *.jpg files.

Just to clarify, have you looked at the recovered files? Are they the files you were missing? I ask because I think PhotoRec is designed to recover deleted or missing files ... which means it will also resurrect files you previously deleted or re-edited, which would be expected behavior but not the files you were looking for.

Windows Explorer does allow me access to older files, just not the most recent ones.

Are you saying the partition seems to work normally, except some files are missing? Your screenshot in post #1 looks like Windows sees a 2TB partition and knows it's 76% free. Does that jibe with your recollection of what it should show?

If so, this sounds like a file system problem, not a partition problem. TestDisk is principally designed to find and recover lost partitions, but if your partition isn't lost, TestDisk is probably the wrong tool. (I think TestDisk does have some NTFS file system diagnostics, but I haven't used them, so I don't know how good they are. TestDisk is a great tool for partition problems, but it appears that's not your problem.)


I'm not an expert in file recovery, but I do know partition recovery. I wonder if there is something missing from your post #1. If Windows sees a healthy primary partition, TestDisk should also show a single NTFS partition right near the top of the report. You haven't indicated if there was such a line.

As for the four so-called "partitions" TestDisk did find (below the "Partition Start End Size in Sectors" line), those are not actual partitions. You haven't said what steps you performed, but I wonder if those are a result of a Deep Scan rather than a Quick Scan. Something led TestDisk astray and told it to look at a data sector in the one and only real partition, and interpret that sector as an Extended partition table. It was not a partition table, it was a data sector, but TestDisk is saying, "If it was a partition table, here is what the entries would mean." In fact, if I reverse engineer where those numbers came from, I can see what appears to be snippets from a few text strings, such as "..OS is com.." and "..Press Del to ..". That seems to confirm the sector was from some program, and not a partition table.

The rest of the analysis (below the "Only one partition must be bootable") can be disregarded. That's TestDisk trying to make sense of the fake "partitions" discovered above it, but since we know that discovery was based on false pretenses the analysis is moot.

Not that any of that matters, because as I said, I think TestDisk wasn't looking for the problem you're trying to solve.

If it were me, I would first immediately disable "Fast Startup", and if the partition is otherwise readable by Windows I'd see what missing files you can recover with NTFS repair utilities, and call it a day. Recover what you can with PhotoRec, or maybe try TestDisk's NTFS file system repair, and follow it up with a Windows chkdisk. After that it's unlikely you'll be able to recover anything more.

Thank you, dg1261

I confess I don't understand the whole 'smoke-and-mirrors' fast boot thing, but I've tried searching and reading some hits. This one seems to describe what I've experienced.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...b-ed53654ffb42

The problem happened in conjunction with my updating an 'insurance' installation of Win10 on a separate SSD. I've described it here:

Fast Startup - Win 10 - Win 7 - Boot Problems - Only 7 Booted - Windows 10 Forums

so I won't repeat it here.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. If I don't have a full recovery I do have an explanation even though aspects of it remain mysterious to me. I will take time to 'fix' the Win10 update and disable Fast Boot. I will try to remember to disable it if and when I do another update.

thanks
baumgrenze

baumgrenze said:

Does Win7 create a hiberfile.sys? [...] I don't find a hiberfil.sys. I do find a pagefile.sys. Primitive logic tells me both should have a similar "inaccessibility" status.

Win7 may or may not have a hiberfil.sys file, depending on whether you have hibernation enabled or disabled. Naturally, if you've disabled hibernation, there will be no hiberfil.sys file. If a hiberfil.sys exists, it is indeed hidden to the same extent as pagefile.sys.

To enable or disable hibernation, open a command-prompt window (might need to "Run as administrator"?) and use the commands "powercfg -h on" or "powercfg -h off", as desired.

Note that "Fast Startup" is not the same thing as hibernation, but it's kind of an in-between half-step. Hibernation saves the state of memory and open programs, so the computer awakens exactly as you left it. (That's the theory, anyway.)

"Fast Startup" does not save your open programs, but it does remember all that boot-time configuration mumbo-jumbo that used to delay startup when your computer was first turned on. Skipping all of that can seem to make the computer boot faster, but the expectation is the computer is meant to boot exactly like it did last time. If you're dual-booting, that isn't always the case, and that's where the trouble comes in.