Windows files created a partition on my hard drive and now my computer cant read my hard drive. HELP!!!!!

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
A

Abdul_80

Prominent
Jun 7, 2017
1
0
510
I don't know what happen to my WD Element 1TB hard drive after windows create a partition on my hard drive. Before it happens, my computer will read my hard drive as G:/ ELEMENT but now my computer cannot read my hard drive.

This is what happen. I wanted to upgrade my current windows to windows 10 but then on the setup window I click on an option "create a bootable copy on a USB thumb drive" and I selected my hard drive. After windows is done creating the bootable copy on my hard drive it turns out that my hard drive space suddenly change from 1TB to 32GB and I can't find any of my important files inside my hard drive by that I mean I can't access to my other files I can only see the windows partition file inside my hard drive. I check disk management and I see that there's a partition and the primary partition is the 32GB space and my 1TB space show unallocated. I then decide to delete the 32GB partition in hope that it can restore the primary drive to my hard drive but it didn't HELP what can I do I really have a lot of important files inside it....



 
Solution
hang-the-9
Yes, this is exactly what happens when you make the boot media, it wipes it and creates the boot media setup. During the process there is a warning that comes up that the drive will be wiped.

From the instructions in several places:
"A blank USB flash drive with at least 5 GB of space or blank DVD (and DVD burner) if you want to create media. We recommend using a blank USB or blank DVD, because any content on it will be deleted."

"USB flash drive. Attach a blank USB flash drive with at least 5GB of space. Any content on the flash drive will be deleted."

Screenshot-226.png




You need to run a file recovery utility like Recuva to see if you can get things back...
Sort by date Sort by votes
hang-the-9

hang-the-9

Titan
Mar 25, 2010
60,387
1,081
152,940
Yes, this is exactly what happens when you make the boot media, it wipes it and creates the boot media setup. During the process there is a warning that comes up that the drive will be wiped.

From the instructions in several places:
"A blank USB flash drive with at least 5 GB of space or blank DVD (and DVD burner) if you want to create media. We recommend using a blank USB or blank DVD, because any content on it will be deleted."

"USB flash drive. Attach a blank USB flash drive with at least 5GB of space. Any content on the flash drive will be deleted."

Screenshot-226.png




You need to run a file recovery utility like Recuva to see if you can get things back. Deleting that other partition will not help you, if anything it will make it harder to find your files.

In the future, make sure you keep two copies of your data, on the primary storage and on a backup drive so this does not happen again.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
JaredDM

JaredDM

Honorable
Jul 8, 2015
716
2
11,665
First off, don't panic and do anything foolish that might make the situation worse. You formatted and overwrote some of the data on your drive, but it's likely that at this point you can still get some of the data back. Perhaps you'll even be able to save some of the file names and folder structure.

Before you start trying to recover the data, it's not a bad idea to clone the drive onto another hard drive. Just in case you mess up again like the first time. This DDRescue guide might be of help with that.

After you get a full clone, you should scan it with some good data recovery software. Nothing free is going to give very good results. If you're unwilling to spend any money you might give Photorec a try. It'll carve out files by type, but you won't get any file names or folder structure. It'll all be just nameless files dumped into random folders.

For better results, and the possibility of getting back files with their names and folders, you'll want to try either R-Studio or perhaps R-Explorer. Both programs cost around $70 or so.

Just be sure that you scan the entire drive from beginning to end before you go and stop the scan. It'll take a while, but it'll have a much better chance of getting back the actual file/folder structure.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom