Lost Partition Recovery from Windows Machine Hard Disk

Formatting seems like a negative word to most when concerning hard drives or storage devices. However, it is formatting only that makes a hard disk drive (HDD) usable on any Windows machine. Partitioning helps create logical partitions and allocates drive space in the hard disk so as to provide fragmented storage space. Also, each partition can be reformatted in desired file system type. In case of deletion or loss of partition, it is believed that the data is lost forever which may not be true. Not always does a lost or deleted partition is gone beyond repair or restore, especially if the precautions are taken at the right time. Learn more than just that about partitions, their loss / unavailability and bust other related myths in the following section.

What is Partitioning?

Partitioning is a process of dividing data storage device such as hard disk into multiple isolated sections called partitions. Basically it serves two chief purposes that are mentioned below:

1. It creates partitions on the hard disk resulting in multiple hard drives that are named in ascending order of alphabets such as C, D, E, etc. With separate partitions formed different types of data can be allocated in different drives making management of data and software applications easier.
2. It improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the hard disk. The reason being that the FAT system used by the Windows, auto- assigns size of cluster, based on the disk size. Bigger the disk size, larger is the cluster and unfortunately large sized clusters result in wastage of space known as slack space.

Causes of Missing Partitions

Partitions can actually get lost in multiple ways such as: by virus attack, bad or corrupt software application, operator’s mistake, corruption in MBR, BPB damage, partition table damage, accidental partition deletion, system crash, corruption in file system, problem in boot sector, etc.

A missing partition signifies that it is not being recognized by the machine. However, whether a partition is being acknowledged by the system or not, entirely relies on partition table; which is a reserved area at the beginning of hard disk containing location and size information about the drive partitions.

If partition table, be it of Master Boot Record (MBR) or of Globally Unique Identifiers Partition Table (GPT), gets damaged by improper handling or any other reason the particular partition gets lost, hence the stored data within it. But in fact the partition is not actually lost; it only becomes invisible to users and this is the reason that possibility of lost partition recovery exists.

• Problem in Boot Sector – Boot sector, also known as boot block is a region in the computer’s hard disk whose size and location is specified by the way its computing platform is designed. It contains machine code to be loaded into RAM by the machine’s in-built firmware for proper booting of the system. But when problem occurs it does not allow successful booting which results in loss of partitions.
• MBR Partition Table Loss – If partition table of MBR, a special boot sector, located at the start of partitioned HDD gets erased, overwritten or damaged then there are high chances of losing the complete data as Windows does not boot up and partitions get lost. However, if MBR is the only corrupted structure then probability of data loss minimizes whereas that of recovery increases.
• Damage in File System – File system in a Windows operating system may be of type FAT or NTFS. Though not prone to corruption, they can also get damaged resulting in loss of drive partitions. All releases like FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, NTFS, NTFS4 & NTFS5 may get corrupt. Moreover, corruption of file system is immaterial whether it is 32-bit or 64-bit Windows version.
• GPT Partition Table Loss – Some OS including MS Windows on x86, only support boot up from GPT partitions. Though GPT is an advanced way of hard disk partitioning and is used in modern day operating systems such as Windows 8, partitions created by this style may also be overwritten or erased resulting in loss of partition.

Note – Therefore, for lost partition recovery it gets essential to repair MBR, GPT or resolve whatever may be the cause of lost partitions, making stored data unavailable. This indeed is not possible by any manual means and any external, third party software is required.

Pre-requisites to Recover Lost Partitions

Ahead of trying to recover lost or damaged partitions, certain pre-requisites as mentioned below should be employed.

• When the partitions are not visible the disk should be installed on any another machine because it is not feasible that any recovery tool recovers the partitions it is installed upon.
• It should be ensured that partition cannot be recovered by ordinary means such as un-hiding it.
• A backup of the data files and folders should always be taken.

Precautions for Successful Partition Recovery

Some things should be definitely taken care of because there is always a chance of doing more destruction than good while trying to recover the lost partitions. For successful lost partition recovery from any Windows based operating system, certain precautions as mentioned below needs to be taken.

• Hard disk with lost or deleted partition should not be overwritten even once.
• Lost/deleted drive partition must not be re-formatted.
• Hard disk should not be run or executed.
• Defragmentation utilities must not be used.

How to Recover Windows Hard Disk Lost Partitions?

Undoubtedly, recovery of lost partitions is not an easy task; moreover, when the issue is with MBR, GPT and boot sectors in MS Windows. In such situations only Hard Drive Data Recovery tool can be brought in utilization. The reason being, that it is a professional and robust application that has the ability to recover lost and deleted data even when partitions are not visible.

Once partitions are found and recovered, they can be mounted onto the computer system making them visible as any other regular disk volumes. It can recover partitions on most hard disks types and supports both FAT and NTFS partition for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows OS.