After formatting C drive, my dual partitioned storage drive only shows one half

SelcukBor · Aug 30, 2016

Hey guys!

Hopefully this is an easy fix, because i've got a looooot of really important documents on this partition.

So I have 2 drives, a C drive 480gb SSD, and a 3TB storage drive which I use for my media documents.

The 3TB storage drive is partitioned into 2tb / 1tb.

My SSD died, so I got a new one, installed windows, everything is beloved patriot dory. However now my 3TB storage drive sees the 2TB partition fine, with all files on it, but the 1TB side is "unallocated storage space". Which is not the case.

How can I recover this partition?

Many thanks in advance.

JaredDM · Aug 30, 2016

You can likely use Testdisk from cgsecurity.org to restore the partition. However before you do that, just a couple questions. What version of Windows did you install? Is it 64bit or 32bit version of Windows? Also, in the drive management does it show the drive as MBR or GPT formatted? I'm guessing that the partition is fine and Windows just isn't seeing it for some reason. There's a 2.2Tb hardware/software boundary in some cases which might cause the OS to not mount the second partition because it extends beyond that boundary.

Boogieman_WD · Aug 30, 2016

Hey there, SelcukBor.

This is pretty odd indeed. I can imagine that this could've happened if the HDD was connected to the motherboard during the Windows installation process, otherwise it is strange.
I'd advise you to backup any important data which you might have on other partition, just to be on the safe side. After that go ahead give it a go with some of the recommended data recovery tools by this article: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm.
As long as you don't mess around with the partition (don't repartition or format it) there are good chances that you might be able to get your files back.

edit: Seems like you've already gotten a suggestion while I was typing.

Good luck! Please let me know how it goes.
Boogieman_WD

SelcukBor · Aug 30, 2016

JaredDM :

Hello Jared!
I installed Windows 7 64bit. It shows the drive as NTFS. I will say though that when I was reinstalling windows originally it wouldn't let me until I disconnected that drive.

I will try your suggestion a shot and report back

Dragos Manea · Aug 30, 2016

Go to disk management and see if you can alocate a letter to the missing partition, sometimes windows is screwing up the letters and you might get some partition with unallocated letter. You can do this by using Disk management or using minitools partition.

SelcukBor · Aug 30, 2016

Dragos Manea :

It will not allow me to allocate a letter or create a partition with this space. It grays out the make partition option.

JaredDM · Aug 30, 2016

Check whether it's MBR or GPT partitioned. You can see it in disk management by right clicking on the left side of the disk as shown here:

If it says "convert to MBR" then you know it's GPT partitioned. If it says "convert to GPT" then you know it's MBR.

Dragos Manea · Aug 30, 2016

No, not make partition, just choose change letter, or better post a screenshot of the disk management

Dragos Manea · Aug 30, 2016

JaredDM :

I dont think it matters, he just reinstalled windows, he did not reformatted the hdd and before that it showed him all partitions. Even it is in mbr he had a 2tb partition and a 1tb partition so it would be fine using mbr.

JaredDM · Aug 30, 2016

Dragos Manea :

It can matter. GPT drives partitioned in Windows also create a vestigial MBR for legacy compatibility. If the GPT isn't being read for some reason, Windows may be just going off the MBR which has a 2.2Tb limitation and therefore won't have the second partition listed because it can't address it using MBR. Just trying to understand what's going on before spewing out advice that might be wrong and lead to data loss.

SelcukBor · Aug 30, 2016

Hey guys, here is a screenshot of what i'm seeing.

link in case the img tag doesn't work
http://imgur.com/hLndHDp

The Unallocated partition is where the files are.

I'm trying Recuva now, seeing if that helps.

SelcukBor · Aug 30, 2016

Recuva finished the scan and gave me this error

http://imgur.com/a/vLUOo

Could this be the partition we're talking about?

Dragos Manea · Aug 30, 2016

JaredDM :

Dragos Manea :

It can matter. GPT drives partitioned in Windows also create a vestigial MBR for legacy compatibility. If the GPT isn't being read for some reason, Windows may be just going off the MBR which has a 2.2Tb limitation and therefore won't have the second partition listed because it can't address it using MBR. Just trying to understand what's going on before spewing out advice that might be wrong and lead to data loss.

And i m coming with proof to contradict you, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KwNaR170mg

The limitation is on a single partition not on the hdd, you can use a 4tb hdd in mbr with 2x2TB partitions.

JaredDM · Aug 30, 2016

I'm not saying you can't do that, I'm saying that if it were originally GPT, and it's now reverted to the MBR it could be reading an incomplete or out of date partition table. I've seen this happen where a drive had bad sectors affecting the GPT and so it only saw the MBR.

In either case, I'd recommend that the OP run Testdisk and see if it can restore the partition. Then if that fails, I'd say give R-Studio a try at scanning the "RAW" partition.

SelcukBor · Aug 30, 2016

JaredDM :

I got r-studio and am doing a deep scan. It's very promising. It will take 3.5 hours but the scan is telling me it's finding thousands of files

http://imgur.com/a/P0CYP

here's hoping this at least retrieves the files. I can format the whole thing and make it one big drive later.

JaredDM · Aug 30, 2016

I think you'll get very good results with R-Studio. It's well worth the $79 in my opinion, for such a powerful tool. I actually use it so much I bought a technician's license.

Boogieman_WD · Aug 31, 2016

Data recovery is your best option. However, did you install your previous OS while having the HDD connected to the motherboard. I'm asking because if so, Windows sometimes writes some of the system files/partition on one of the secondary storage drives and you could end up with your boot, active, etc. partition on the HDD instead of the SSD. If this is what happened then installing your new OS might have messed up things with the files/partitions you might have had on that 1TB partition and thus lead to the issues you're having now.

SelcukBor · Aug 31, 2016

R-Studio did a scan but half my files were unrecoverable. Which is a real shame as without at least 95% integrity of each folder the entire folder becomes useless. I'm a sound designer by trade by I have dozens of huge sound libraries. Missing huge swaths of sounds is pretty damaging. I guess i'll just have to contact every library I bought from and ask for a new download link. Sorry guys, just can't afford to spend any time trying to fix this.

boogieman, my HD was not connected when I was installing the OS. I pulled it out prior to ensure that wasn't the case.

After formatting C drive, my dual partitioned storage drive only shows one half

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