folders and files disappear -no previous versions available

[dado pausini]

Hi, there!

I'm facing a very peculiar issue, hope you could help me, if I'm in the right section.
I have two HDDs with Win7 in the same machine. Some time ago, a lighting storm ruined my network adapter. I replaced it, but some folders disappeared and others returned to what they where in 2020, so I lost a lot of files.
The content of those important folders was replaced by folders named with numbers, as well as archives like destop.ini , bak. extensions, and one named GORQA. No older versions, nor "newer", were available to be restored by the system.
Now, this happenned again -not the lightings. After some trouble installing a video and audio program, I couldn't boot into main drive anymore, even after rebuilding the boot. It would work for a while and fail when booting again.
Some folders and files returned to older versions, even those backed up.
I'm booting into the second HDD and the main one keeps on appearing and disappearing on My Computer. When they show up in the boot manager, they're ok, but Diskpart and manufacturers tools like Data Lifeguard and Sea Tools change their drive letters, taking one HDD for the other. Almost like an occasional identity crisis.
I think they are in conflict and maybe it's the cause of everything. What do you think?
Thank you,
Dado

 

[Megahertz07]

Lets see how is your drive health (on all drives).

Logical test:
Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
chkdsk X: /f
replace X with the partitions letters and hit enter. It will ask if you want to un mount the drive to test it = Yes
Pay attention on the results, specially bad blocks, bad clusters, bad sectors etc

and last one
chkdsk c: /f
It will say your disk is in use and if you want to schedule to next start = yes
Restart
Pay attention on the results, specially bad blocks, bad clusters, bad sectors etc

For a SMART, download, extract and run Crystal Disk Info It is a portable, don't need to be installed.

Just as a remark, drive letters are assigned by the OS to the partitions. That is why when you boot from a drive you may have drive letters assigned to partitions that are different when you boot from another drive.

 

[dado pausini]

Thank you, Megahertz.

Just run checkdisk and both HDDs are ok, no bad blocks, bad sectors nor bad clusters.
Same with Crystal Disk, that says Healthy for both of them.
Referring to the drive letters, the WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics shows the drives W and Z belonging to the Seagate HDD, but they belong to the Western Digital (disk2).



And, it shows drives C, F and S as belonging to the Western Digital HDD, but they are in the Seagate (disk 1)



The WD HDD is unacessible, so I've been working on the Seagate lately.
I know it looks a bit confusing. Please let me know if I made it clear.

 

[Megahertz07]

Referring to the drive letters, the WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostics shows the drives W and Z belonging to the Seagate HDD, but they belong to the Western Digital (disk2).

And, it shows drives C, F and S as belonging to the Western Digital HDD, but they are in the Seagate (disk 1)

As I wrote before, the drive letters are assigned to a partition by the OS. Windows partition will always be C:, so it doesn't matter the drive it booted from. The other partitions you can assign any letter to them or even no letter.

If you boot from drive A, partition 1, you can assign a partition letter to partition 2 and 3 (same drive A) as D: and E:. On drive B ,that also has Windows, you can assign a partition letter X: to Windows partition 1 (of drive B) and assign a partition letter to partition 2 and 3 (same drive B) as Y: and Z:.

If you boot from drive B, partition 1, you can assign a partition letter to partition 2 and 3 (same drive B) as D: and E:. On drive A, that also has Windows, you can assign a partition letter X: to Windows partition 1 (of drive A) and assign a partition letter to partition 2 and 3 (same drive A) as Y: and Z:.

The example above will happen if you clone one drive into another.

- - - Updated - - -

What you mean by WD HDD isn't accessible?
Please post a whole screen Disk Manager Image. Don't forget to expand the columns so we can read them.
Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

 

[SIW2]

Western Digital Blue 1TB
Seagate Barracuda 1TB

Post a screenshot of the disk management window - so we can see the disks and partitions

Type diskmgmt.msc in start search box and click it when it appears.

 

[dado pausini]

What I meant is that the WD HDD doesn't initialize anymore.
I rebuilt the boot, it worked for a while, but now it doesn"t boot. The screen turns black for a while and returns to the OS selection display.
So, I boot from the Seagate HDD, but Data Lifeguard Diagnostics shows drive C on the WD HDD (previous IMAGE 2), instead of Seagate.
Sometime ago, when I could boot from the WD HDD, the W drive was changed to C and the Z drive remained as Z. The former C changed to H, and F and S kept their letters on the Seagate.
The File Manager displays all of them right. Seagate is in yellow and WD in pink.



When I was rebuilding the boot, it took many tries and I had suspected that sometimes the system was taking one drive for another. At least one program is doing that.


The disk manager.

 

[SIW2]

thats better.

in diskmgmt view :

Disk0 partition1 is active and system

Disk1 partition2 is booted os.

It matches wd lifeguard.

This is called disk0 in diskmgmt and is called disk1 in wd lifeguard



This is called disk1 in diskmgmt and is called disk2 in wd lifeguard



It looks perfectly normal.

 

[dado pausini]

The point is that that drive C just can't be in the WD HDD, because I only can boot from the Seagate.

This is the WD HDD. Drives C, F and S are not supposed to be here.

And this is the Seagate. Drives W and Z shouldn't be here, as well.

In other words:
Disk 0 in bootmngr is actually Disk 2 in WD Lifeguard and it's the WD HDD.

And Disk 1 in bootmngr is Disk 1 in WD Lifeguard. It's the Seagate HDD

The manufacturer application identified them wrongly.

Quite a mess isn't it?

 

[SIW2]

Disk0 partition1 is system. That is the one you boot from.

Disk1 partition2 is boot - that is the one you are booted into

It looks normal.

 

[Megahertz07]

Lets rebuild your boot loader on drive 1
Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
diskpart
select volume c
active
exit
bcdboot C:\Windows /s C: /f BIOS
exit

Shutdown, detach drive 0 (unplug SATA or power supply cable), make sure drive 1 is first on the BIOS Boot priority list and try to boot.

 

[dado pausini]

First of all, I apologize. You are right. I mistook the newest HDD with the older -they were three before, I unplugged one, it was a bit messy.Sorry about that.

About the procedures, diskpart marked the partition as active.
I think the second step didn't work properly:

 

[SIW2]

There is no /f bios switch in win7 bcdboot.

It is just
bcdboot c:\windows /s c:
if that gives a success message, then:

diskpart
sel vol c
act
sel vol w
inact
exi

 

[Megahertz07]

Sorry SIW2.
bcdboot C:\Windows /s C: /f BIOS
works for Win 10

 

[dado pausini]

Got the success message.
Unplugged drive 0 and got this: "Reboot and Select proper Boot devices or insert Boot Media in the selected Boot device and press a key_"
-

 

[SIW2]

Did you activate vol c ?

 

[dado pausini]

yes, I did.

but I wasn't supposed to activate the w too?
provided I'm already booting from c?

 

[SIW2]

c should be active. w should be inactive.

 

[dado pausini]

I did ihe same procedures again and got the same message.
I had set the BIOS to boot from drive1 before, but apparently it was trying to boot from DVD drive.
So, I inserted the Install Boot Repair CD and it immediately booted from it, but the repair didn't work.

 

[SIW2]

Might be a problem with the mbr or vbr executable code.

bootsect /nt60 c: /mbr

 

[dado pausini]

It gave me this message: "bootsect is not recognized as an internal or external command".