Installed Clean Windows 7 and now Dell Recovery Drive D is Missing!

[ShanaD]

I have a Dell Studio 540 desktop. It's been a few years and I wanted to clean it up for many reasons. One of them being my main e-mail account got hacked and I had to change every password and update every account I had that had that e-mail address attached to it. Figured anything embedded somewhere would be wiped out.

Anyway, so I upgraded from Windows Vista Home Premium x64 to Windows 7 Home Premium x64. Naturally Dell computers have a "Recovery" D:\ drive. Well, my husband suggested that I reformat first and do it again. Not thinking that my "Recovery" drive would go anywhere. I didn't necessarily select anything that said "Do you want to reformat the drive?," but instead just reinstalled on the C:\ drive.

When it finished and I got to my desktop, I went to "Computer", and I noticed my Recovery drive was gone. I had a lot of important stuff on there that I really need to get back. Browsing the internet once I got video drivers and such reinstalled, I came upon someone saying to use EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. It's scanning and it found one such partition or drive that was 32GB (which leads me to believe that's it), but it says it hasn't found anything. I'm doing a full scan now, but total time for it to finish is 4 hours. I have about 2 hours to go.

Is there any way to recover that lost partition (which I'm assuming that's what it was), not another HD?

Thanks in advance.

 

[theog]

   Information

We always assume you have made your Recovery Disks using the OEM manufacturer's Recovery Media Creator app the first day you had your new PC.​

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Use the Recovery DVD, you made to reinstall Vista, than upgrade to Windows 7.

 

[ShanaD]

I don't understand how that would help me get back my recovery drive that has all of my important documentation on it back.

Could you please explain why I should downgrade and then re-upgrade?

 

[theog]

The Dell Recovery DVD you made will remake the Recovery Partition, when you use to reinstall Vista.

 

[ShanaD]

But it won't recover what was already on there, will it?

 

[AddRAM]

No, it won`t. You need recovery software to do that. or make and use a Partition Wizard boot cd, it may do the job for you.

Partition Wizard Bootable CD allows user to manage partition directly with partition manager bootable CD.

 

[gregrocker]

As it explains in the SPecial Note for Dell Owners in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7,
the Recovery Partition will not run after a reinstall. For this reason I'd first boot to test the HD with Dell Diagnostics Utility - How to Run the to test that it works. If it works delete all partitions except OEM Diagnostics during the booted install, to create new in the Unallocated Space using the Drive Options pictured in Steps 7 and 8 of Clean Install Windows 7.

There isn't anything you need on the Recovery Partition. Drivers are all in the Win7 installer which unlike XP is a driver-complete OS. As it explains in the steps to get a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 you should enable Automatically deliver drivers via Windows Update (Step 3) then run all rounds of Important and Optional Windows Updates with reboots until there are no more. This will supply all drivers except one or two in rare cases. Import those from the Dell Support Downloads webpage for your model PC which is where the latest are available, not in a years-old Recovery partition.

As to whether you'd ever want to Factory Recover, we've helped with tens of thousands of Clean Reinstalls here and not one has ever wanted to go back to the bloated factory preinstall which is the worst install one can possibly have. Stick with the steps in the tutorial and you'll have the best install one can have, finally enjoying native Win7 performance.

 

[theog]

But it won't recover what was already on there, will it?

The Recovery DVD you made,will return your PC back to the first day you had your new PC.

 

[ShanaD]

Thank you for all the replies. That EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard finished and found all of the files that I was looking for. I recovered them and now I have a fresh install of Windows 7 and my missing important files back. So I'm a happy camper once again.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Normally no user files are on "RECOVERY" partition. Why you say you lost important files? Please post disk management screenshot http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html
Did you manually delete recovery partition or clean whole disk? If not... it should still be there

 

[Kaktussoft]

Thank you for all the replies. That EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard finished and found all of the files that I was looking for. I recovered them and now I have a fresh install of Windows 7 and my missing important files back. So I'm a happy camper once again.

Consider making backups if the files are that important

 

[ShanaD]

I moved all of the stuff that I wanted to keep to my recovery drive. I thought it was a separate drive from my C: drive. When I went to do a fresh install of Windows 7 instead of upgrading to Windows 7 from Windows Vista my Recovery D: drive was missing from the list of drives. I did a "fresh" install after doing the upgrade option because I was having problems after doing it that way. My husband said he knew others that had problems after doing the upgrade option so that's why he said maybe reinstall it fresh.

Anyway.. I solved the issue with data recovery software. Now I just have to put everything back into it's rightful place.

Thanks again for all the replies. Much appreciated.

 

[gregrocker]

Recovery drive is normally the Factory Recovery partition used to restore Win7 to factory condition. That's the last place files should be moved as it would foul the Recovery so it couldn't run. It shouldn't even have a letter.

When you reinstalled hopefully you followed the steps in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7
which shows how to get and keep a perfect install based on tens of thousands we've helped with here.

A good backup should be to another HD or external HD, unless you only have enough files they will fit on a DVD or flash stick. A modern free method for backup which also will sync files across all your devices is compiled in Sync, Backup and Store your Files to the Cloud with Skydrive - Windows 7 Forums.