my partitions disappeared..

Hi... I have two partitions on my "O" Drive which have disappeared. I have read through this thread but I seem to have a slightly different situation:

The partitions do appear in Computer Management, but as "Unallocated Space" (screen shot attached).

I have never seen this issue before and am willing to use repair steps in this thread, but I'm not sure which of the solutions may (or may not) apply in this case.

My goal, of course, is to make the missing partitions to come back, with the files intact. They contain only data, no system files. The partitions disappeared upon rebooting to finalize installation of new backup software.

Any help would be appreciated.

Win7 Ultimate 64-bit is installed on this machine.

Why is C (strangely named "Copy of C") being booted by a second 100mb partition next to the 100mb System REserved partition intended to boot the OS.

Then there's another 100mb partition marked Active on the second HD. Is this booting J labeled OS? If not then it shouldn't be marked Active.

If the two missing partitions were deleted then they can be undeleted by running Partition Wizard Partition Recovery Wizard - Video Help as long as they are not formatted over.

gregrocker, thanks for your reply. It does look very strange, I agree. What happened: My machine became unbootable and I recovered my system from a full backup onto a new physical drive six weeks ago. It defaulted to calling the new system partition "Copy of C".

The original drive was left in the machine, with all partitions intact, including the old system partition. This is what you are seeing as a "bootable" partition. This original physical drive was left in so as to move data to the new drive, afterwards the drive is to be removed as I consider it too old and not reliable.

I will admit I do not understand the odd, at least to me, partition structure on the new drive where the new system exists. However, I am able to use the computer without any apparent day-to-day issues. I am preparing to rebuild the system from scratch at this point, anyway, so I am not overly concerned, it's been five years since the system was last rebuilt.

Regarding the missing partitions, I did not format them in any way and am not aware of them being formatted somehow by the machine. the partitions simply weren't there anymore after a boot-up. (The other partitions on this data-only drive are intact and usable).

I have had the MiniTool utility on my machine for a very long time and am familiar with it, but have not used it to undelete partitions and appreciate the link to the video. I will investigate it and post my next result.

gregrocker, I wrote:

"I have had the MiniTool utility on my machine for a very long time and am familiar with it, but have not used it to undelete partitions and appreciate the link to the video. I will investigate it and post my next result."

Thanks for the link to the video, I followed all the instructions and MiniTool did see the two unallocated partitions I wished to recover (both identified as "SEAGATE..."). I got to the very last screen (attached) and checked off all the partitions I wanted to keep. I selected the "Finish" button. This took me back to the MiniTool GUI but it shows "0 applications pending" and the "Apply" button is grayed out. In the video, the "Apply" function is demonstrated, but of course I can't execute the function.

I did both both "quick" and "full" scans of the unallocated 737.90GB partition, the one which contains the two unallocated areas. (The other two unallocated partitions are truly unallocated). I ran the task multiple times, all of course with the same result.

Am I missing something I should do additionally? I get no pop-up box or other indication that the attempt failed, so I don't know if I need to do something differently or if this utility simply will not fix the problem.

What can you advise, please? Thank you.

One additional thing which may help, when I do double-click on the "found" partitions in the attached graphic, I can see the full file structure and all child files which should be there. It's a puzzle at this point why the utility can see inside the partitions yet won't allow for the next step in the recovery process.

It says to select the deleted partitions.

Remember a Basic disk cannot have more than 4 Primary or 3 Primary plus unlimited Logical partitions. Has anything changed since the deletions?

Thanks for the additional advice...

No, there have been no changes at all since the problem first occurred.

I see where it says to select the deleted partitions, but the "Help" seems to indicate that all visible partitions should be checked, i.e.:

"you should not only select the lost partitions but also the complete present partitions", which is what I did.

It is not clear what would happen if I did not select all the partitions, but only the affected one. I didn't wish to possibly risk compromising those not checked somehow. Here is the direct quote from the help section:

• After the scanning, select the partitions you need from the list. Here, you should not only select the lost partitions but also the complete present partitions, and then click the button Finish. MiniTool Partition Wizard will rebuild partition table for the chosen partitions"

The scan results box and the help seem to indicate different actions to take regarding checking the appropriate partitions.

The video demonstration shows all the existing and the lost partitions as checked before "Finish" is selected. But the demonstration also shows the the lost partition as highlighted, perhaps this is actually what is meant by the use of the use of the word "select". In other words, perhaps the process should be to:

1. Highlight, then check the partition to restore

2. Check all of the other visible partitions

3. Select "Finish"

This is exactly what is shown in the video. Would this be the actual proper procedure? Unfortunately, the directions within the application itself are not crystal-clear; I just wish to follow the correct protocol.

The partition structure after doing a Full Scan shows up exactly as it existed before the two partitions became "unallocated".

After doing a full scan (I selected the 737.90GB partition exclusively) I followed the "check/highlight/check" procedure we discussed and selected "Finish" and got the same result as before. No option to "Apply" appears.

The only other thing I can think of doing is to do a full scan of the entire physical drive and try again, but the scans I've done already allow me by double-clicking to see not only the original name of the partitions but every sub-directory and file/file size in the partitions. No directories or files seem to be either missing or disturbed.

It would seem to me since the file structure appears to be intact, the partition should be able to be added into the partition table. Unfortunately, that is not what is happening.

Just a thought. Which version of MiniTools Partition Wizard are you running? If not the latest version, please install the latest version 8.1.1 and redo everything and present it afresh if it is anything different. ( My intuition says it could be different. Can be wrong too but would still insist that you redo with the latest version.)