Cannot find hard drive

[Torq2]

Hi,

I was wondering if someone on here could help me. I was trying to find out my hard drive speed as it is the lowest score on my setup. I downloaded a small speed checker program and ran it. It was set to read mode and was writing a log file. I then switched it to write test and got a message saying the it would destroy data, I assumed it meant the log file and clicked ok.

All seemed well until suddenly the computer restarted. It then could not find the systems files. I checked the bios and found that it was trying to boot to "apti drive", whatever that is, and so I changed it back to my hard drive. Still it wouldn't fire up.

I have been looking through the forums and have put in the win 7 disk and tried to repair it, also bootrec, bootsect/ mbr, nothing works.

I downloaded an updated bios file which seems to have loaded ok.

I am showing a hard drive in setup and everything looks fine. When I am in cmd prompt and try to change to C drive, it doesn't recognise it. In cmd the drive is showing as X, all I can get is my cd drive which has changed to D.

It is as if my hard drive has vanished. I am assuming that the program wiped my start up files, but I can't understand why I cannot reinstall them. I also tried to reinstall win7, but it can't find a drive to install to. I am getting a bit desparate now please help.

It looks like my hard drive has just vanished.

 

[Golden]

What was the name of the software?

It sounds as if it has wiped the drive.....use this to check if the disk/partitions still exist or have data on them:

 

[Torq2]

Hi Golden,

Funny I posted a reply and it doesn't seem to be here. I downloaded lost partition recovery and it looks like all the partitions have been deleted. Luckily it does show all my files so maybe I can recover them. I'm not quite sure how it works so I'm a bit wary after what has happened, but thanks for the advice.

Regards

 

[Golden]

We better double check....if your partitions are lost then so are the files. Lets check that something hasn't been lost in translation.

Please follow this tutorial to see exactly what is left on your disk worth salvaging:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ate-live-cd-dvd-usb-use-emergency-backup.html

Use screen capture images so I don't misunderstand you.

 

[Torq2]

Hi Golden,

I'll discribe where I am and what I am looking at.

I am on power data recovery program, in the lost partion recovery section. At the top of the screen is my hard drive in black type. Below is my 4 partitions in red type, they say deleted partition. If I click on them the left screen changes to "open", "full Scan". If I open them I can see all my folders and files. 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 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.



Regards

 

[Torq2]

Hi,

I just tried the peppermint thing but the pc doesn't recognise it for some reason.

I'm thinking to maybe put my old hard drive in the case and see if I can install win7 on it and use it as the main HDD. Maybe I will be able to access the other hdd as a slave drive.

 

[Golden]

You need to be more specific with the Peppermint 3 errors.....it should work without trouble

 

[Torq2]

I don't know what to tell you. I installed it on a flash drive as the instructions, put the flashdrive in the slot and set removable drive in boot up, and when I started the computer it just ignored the drive and went straight to unable to find system files error.

I have now installed an old hdd and put win 7 on it. 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.

Thanks for your help


Regards

 

[alan10]

We better double check....if your partitions are lost then so are the files.

Sorry but that is ALMOST TRUE BUT DEFINITELY NOT TRUE.

My experience - Long story short
total success with Freeware (no restrictions for home use) Lazesoft Data Recovery
Download Lazesoft Data Recovery Home 3.4.0

My experience - short story long :-

Windows Booted up stupid and due to a windows race hazard and confused Disk 0 (GPT) not with Disk 1 (MBR) and thought it had two disks with identical 8 hex-digit digit Disk ID numbers.
That is illegal.
Windows promptly put Disk 1 (MBR) OFFLINE and due to Microsoft stupidity it tried to re-write the Disk ID of the GPT style Disk 0, BUT in reality it over-wrote the multi-hyphenated GPT Identity value with the 8 hex-digit identity which had been owned by the MBR style Disk 1.
Windows on my MBR style SSD Disk 2 came to life without access to :-
Disk 2 which held system files Pagefile.Sys and %TEMP%, and also held all my partition backups for Disks 0 and 1 ;
Disk 1 (now off-line) which held my browser profiles and other things that are useful when trying to get help fixing a broken PC.

Disk 2 was now seen as have its first two partitions RAW and all the remaining partitions of Unallocated Space.
The first RAW partition previously held Pagefile.sys
Partition backups, Virtual Machines, and lots of other goodies were in that "Unallocated Space".
Not a good start to the day.

I quickly put Disk 2 off-line and was then able to put Disk 1 on-line and start browsing.

So far as Windows was concerned, all of Disk 0 partitions were lost.
A few file recovery tools made valiant efforts that failed.
One expensive utility did appear to recover everything,
BUT Macrium rejected the resurrected image backups,
probably because the Recovery tool accurately located the start of each file and the size of each file,
and reconstituted the correct number of contiguous sectors from the start of the file,
BUT unfortunately the backups were written to fragmented (never defragged) free space and as a result the files themselves had been fragmented and scattered across the partition,
so hash checksums protected me from thinking the restoration was successful.

Eventually I tried the Freeware Home version of Lazesoft

That recovered all the files from both RAW partitions, and also from all of the many partitions now seen as UNALLOCATED ( also to be known as LOST ).
The bulk of the recovery consists of two main Macrium archives :-
406 off *.mrimg Windows 7 backups totalling 243.7 GB
268 off *.mrimg Ancient Windows XP backups totalling 72.9 GB
All of those backups have now been validated by Macrium
Absolutely perfect recovery of 316.6 GB

I did not NEED those backup files because almost all of them had previously been backed up and validated on an external backup
BUT my GPT style Disk 0 held 101.8 GB of other files for which there was no hash checksums to validate,
and which I had not backed up.
Absolute proof of perfect recovery of 316.6 GB in 674 files gives me reasonable trust in the integrity of the remaining 101.8 GB in 7900 remaining files (which being much smaller have far fewer fragments to cause confusion.)

I used Data Recovery / Partition Recovery

URGENT P.S.

I kept Disk 0 OFF-LINE whilst recovering its data.
That way it was write protected so that if I made a mistake with unfamiliar recovery software,
there was no way that it could write to Disk 0 and over-write the data I wanted to recover.
I am pleased to say that Write protection does not appear to impede recovery.

Regards
Alan

 

[alan10]

I think I may buy the program and try to recover the drive, unless you know a free program which will do it.

I was surprised that commercial software was offered here.
I have now looked at the link you were given and CANNOT see any price tag.

Regardless.

Once you get freeware Lazesoft working on a computer it can create a WinPE Boot Recovery CD with tons of goodies in addition to data recovery.

 

[Golden]

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.

 

[alan10]

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 :-

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

 

[Golden]

All good Alan

 

[Torq2]

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.

 

[Golden]

Consider an SSD....you will never look back. Fir storage use the WD HDD

 

[alan10]

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.

 

[Torq2]

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.

 

[Torq2]

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

 

[alan10]

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

 

[Torq2]

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?