Lost partition after defrag abort

[Psyver]

Hello

First of all sorry for my english i'm not perfect at it

So, yesterday i started a defrag for my H: partition, but then I decided to abort it, today when I switched on my computer this partition is no longer showed on windows, so I installed Minitool Partition Wizard Home Edition and this partition have no letter and is shown as Unallocated, I believe data still there but I dont know how to recover the partition.

 

Any help would be welcome, thank you.

[Alan_B]

Years ago Minitool Partition Wizard Home Edition included a Partition Recovery Wizard which recovered all the partitions that were lost on my Laptop.

It should be even better now.

[Psyver]

Thanks Alan_B for the reply, I will try this, will update on the situation when it's done

[Psyver]

Hello again.

I used the Partition Recovery Wizard as you suggested and it worked perfect, data is still there, I just needed to reactivate the partition and reassign to it its usual letter on the disk management tool on windows control panel.

At the end of the day I learned my lesson: Never ever abort a defrag procedure.

Thanks you very much Alan_B for your help

[Alan_B]

You are welcome, happy to help.

 

N.B

I lost 4 NTFS partitions and 2 FAT32 partition on my Laptop internal HDD.

one year earlier my preparations for disaster included not only installing Minitool Partition Wizard on partitions C:\

but also downloading their Boot Recovery ISO file and burning a Boot Recovery CD in case I ever lost System C:\.

When disaster struck I lost all partitions and the Laptop was unbootable - apart from Recovery Boot CD's

 

After Recovering C:\ and all the other partitions I booted back into Windows on C:\

and the first thing that happened was that Windows insisted that I should run Chkdsk on the FAT32 partition V:\,

and that fixed some "security" things but no data appeared to have been lost.

Windows did not suggest Chkdsk for the other FAT32 partition or the 4 off NTFS partitions.

 

You may also be warned to run Chkdsk on H:\ if it is FAT32.

Somehow NTFS is more secure against disaster - I do not know why.

[hazelnut]

Partition Wizard is useful if Windows cannot boot because of corruption. You can do a system file check on the corrupted drive. Did one this week for a neighbour... worked a treat.

[Psyver]

@ Alan_B

4 partitions O_O wow that should have been freaked you out ! good thing you haven't lost any data.

My recovered partition was NTFS but I did a Chkdsk anyways, found some errors but seems important things are safe

 

@ hazelnut

how do you use partition wizard if windows cannot boot ? that would be very useful indeed.

[hazelnut]

From a Hirens CD. It's one of the tools included on it.

 

Or make a Partitionwizard iso disc

 

http://www.partition...ootable-cd.html

 

How to do SFC using it.

 

http://www.partition...e-system01.html

[Alan_B]

@ Alan_B

4 partitions O_O wow that shoud have been freaked you out ! good thing you haven't lost any data.

My recovered partition was NTFS but I did a Chkdsk anyways, found some errors but seems important things are safe

Actually no panic.

I had a Macrium Reflect Boot Recovery CD that could restore all my important partitions from Partition Image backups,

and I had often used this without problems to restore C:\ after a Windows Update had gone wrong.

 

Before I used Macrium I prepared for disaster by downloading and burning the Partitionwizard iso to a CD,

but disaster never came.

 

Hence when I lost all partitions I knew Macrium would rescue me,

but chose to first of all evaluate the Partitionwizard iso CD.

I wanted to know that my Lifebelt (Partition Wizard ISO) would keep me afloat if my Ship (Windows) sunk and my Lifeboat (Macrium) capsized.

 

Incidentally, Partition V:\ which required Chkdsk operation was the one partition that had not been imaged by Macrium,

because it held all my Macrium image backup files

However, on the basis that two backups is hardly enough,

all those backup files had been duplicated by Teracopy onto an external HD.

[Psyver]

@ hazelnut

I didnt know about hiren's CD, this can be a life saver, Thank you very much for the tips =D

 

@ hazelnut

Aha so Partition Wizard made it easier for you by just repairing the damaged partition table instead of having to backup all data which would take some time, and yeah as always the only thing you didnt backup is where the fail occurs xD

 

Again thank you both for your kind help, much appreciated

[Alan_B]

Aha so Partition Wizard made it easier for you by just repairing the damaged partition table instead of having to backup all data which would take some time, and yeah as always the only thing you didnt backup is where the fail occurs xD

Actually in less than 10 minutes and no mental gymnastics Macrium Reflect backups would have restored all partitions,

(other than V:\ which only held backups and thus could not backup itself)

 

It took well over an hour using Partition Wizard and a lot of mental anguish,

but I chose to learn what it was capable of because :-

 

1.

In any future emergency I wanted the comfort of knowing that if Macrium ever failed I had an alternative "Get out of Jail Card".

 

2.

Even though I did not know who you would be,

I wanted to be able to help you when I might encounter you,

and I knew that Macrium would be no use if you had not created a backup.

Actually Partition Wizard running under Windows is not good if system partition C:\ is lost,

but in that situation you only need to get a friend to download the Partition Wizard ISO and burn the CD for you.

 

Partition Wizard took well under an hour to analyse the entire 160 GB HDD and identify all the partition boundaries that had ever existed. and their volume names.

 

It took much closer to an hour of mental anguish choosing which boundaries to select because :-

I had repositioned the partitions several times and there was no indication of which were the latest active partition boundaries;

and I had never changed the volume names from their initial defaults, so volume names did not help me at that time.

 

The first thing I did after recovery was to allocate relevant volume names such as

C_System

D_Data_D

H_Data_H

etc.

[Psyver]

Yeah its always good to know that you have more than one key to open the closed door.

Partition Wizard was very fast in my case with the quick search, it took some minutes to analyse and few seconds to repair (my H: partition is 540 GB with half of it free !)

That idea of renaming volumes with relevant names is excellent, I never tought to do it, but now you did mention it I will do it right away