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Messed up partitions

956 views 7 replies 3 participants last post by  BIGBEARJEDI 
#1 ·
Hello to you all,
I am asking for advice or guidance in a difficult task, to retrieve some data from an Hard Disk with probably some parttions problems.
I'll describe what happened, and what I tried, thank you for your attention:)

I had:
A windows 8.1 PC
One 500GB hard-disk, with two logical partitions, C: where windows is installed, and D:. Both of them were circa 250GB in size.

A black-out shut down the PC while booting, probably during windows updates installation (the screen was black).
When we started the PC again, it was trying a system restore, but another black-out shut down the PC.

I think now there is a problem with partitions:
- Windows won't boot, It display the recovery options screen.
- Running notepad.exe on the command prompt in the recovery option and choosing "open" let me see this:
There is a logical drive with the name "System reserved" circa 130MB
There is drive D, with its data (I am not sure if there is everything) but instead of 250GB its size is displayed as almost 500GB!
Old drive C is lost, it seems it was merged with D.

Gparted show the same, plus an unallocated space of 1.1MB

I want to recover some data from drive C, I have burned a knoppix CD, a Gparted live CD and a System Rescue CD
I was hoping that testdisk could help me, but I'm not good using it.

There is a possibility that knowing an approximation of the original partitions I can retrieve my data?
If you need some logs of other data ask me:)

Thank you for your help!
 
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#2 ·
When Windows 7 and 8 install, it installs a 100MB System Reserved partition without a drive letter. This is includes the boot file.
The power outage, destroyed your C: partition and you may not be able to recover.
Your best options are to use the Free TestDisk program to try and recover whatever files you can. I have had the best luck with GetDataBack. You will need another drive of the same size or larger to restore your files to. Once you have recovered most of your files, you then will need to reinstall Windows on that drive again.
 
#6 ·
I'm not sure if Easeus will do that, it usually just clones visible partitions.You usually need a recovery program, like these. If you make an Image file with the free TestDisk program, you then can try to recover your files from that image. I have had the best luck with GetDataBack. You will need another drive of the same size or larger to restore your files to.
 
#8 · (Edited)
One thing you can look at with the GPartEd CD is to look for read errors, especially READ ALLOCATION SECTOR ERRORS; if there are more than 6 of those ERRORS, most of the software mentioned above will have difficulties recovering your data from those corrupted partitions or their images. Some of my teammates here have had more luck than I have with recoverying from Images of hard drive partitions with these types of Read errors; but I thought it's only a half-hour to look and test this. If this is the case, your drive has failed in a manner that's going to be VERY difficult to recover files from. Note, I said "difficult", not "impossible". That's been misinterpreted by other Users here when I've made this comment.

If you have no luck with it in either case, read erros or no, you might consider taking it to your local Computer Pro. Many licensed and certified Techs like me have some forensics background or data recovery skills beyond what you have; of course they charge for it, typically, $30-$90 or so. If you exhaust all your own efforts, it might be worth trying this method. It often produces results, as several of our other TSF users here will testify to if you read through some of our thread history.

You have to ask yourself the question: "How much is the personal information on that hard drive worth to me to get it back in dollars and cents?". :confused:

In the meantime, you can just buy another hard drive for probably $100 on eBay and replace the damaged drive, reload your Win8 and get the computer operational again. Keep that drive on the side out of the computer to work on or take to the Computer Pro.

BIGBEARJEDI :sleep:
 
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