possible to recover missing - not seen hdd data/space?

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soji08

soji08

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Dec 6, 2014
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this is in regard to a closed thread at:

How to recover data from a unrecognized external hard drive
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/296645-32-recover-data-unrecognized-external-hard-drive

*i know title is about unrecognized "external" drive but mentions retrieval of internal drive data.

my problem is i have a laptop that no longers 'sees' 50 gb of an original 90 gb harddrive. it happens
that needed lost data is in that 50 gbs of space. i'm trying to see if ubuntu can possible read loss
hdd when i boot.

from thread i burned an Ubuntu 32 bit on dvd. what is procedure to take after boot. i want to keep
all data on vista installation. the other problem is i might not be able to load ubuntu (share space with windows) as i don't have available hdd space.

any suggestions?

alex
 
Solution
hang-the-9


OK, so now we have some more clues, you were messing with the partitions which caused this whole thing. You always need to make sure you have backups of your data when working on the disk, especially when dealing for the partitions or formatting, anything goes wrong...
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

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Start at the beginning here. You have a laptop, what do you see when you look at your drive in the system? Is it a single partition? If more than one, is the other partition totally missing or just empty.

You already were able to boot the system to the Linux disk? What happens when you look at the hard drive? You don't need to actually install Linux, you just boot off a live disk and run it directly from the media. You do not want to install anything or do anything on your hard drive right now. If you start copying files to it, it only decreases the chance of getting anything back. Once we can sort out what happened to make the other data not there.
 
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

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How did the D partition end up in front of the C partition? Were you cloning the disk or trying to move partition sizes?

According to the screenshot your drive is 31.5 gb which is a very odd size. This is not something that just comes up from no-where, what happened before this?

And you were talking about an external drive, I don't even see it listed in your disk manager? You may as well boot off the Linux disk, it won't harm anything unless you try to change the partition or something.
 
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soji08

soji08

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hang-the-9 --- if i remember, i think i may have been trying to combine (merge) unallocated space to c: drive but for some reason, the prompt that comes up to ask which drive(s) i wish to merge from/to did not show up and instead, moved/switch data to D: drive. so the D drive is now my previous labeled C drive. so i don't know if this 'act' will make it impossible to retrieve any lost hdd/data from the 50 gb that no longer show anywhere, i haven't the faintest.
 
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

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Mar 25, 2010
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OK, so now we have some more clues, you were messing with the partitions which caused this whole thing. You always need to make sure you have backups of your data when working on the disk, especially when dealing for the partitions or formatting, anything goes wrong, your data is gone. Try running testdisk, it's a utility made to recover lost partitions. A Linux boot disk will not help you at all since that missing data is in a place that no longer exists on the disk without using some sort of utility to get it back. Basically you took a cake, cut it up, tried to rearrange it into a new shape but lost a piece of it while doing it. Without finding that lost piece you will not have your full drive back. Testdisk may find the partition to recover.
 
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mbilal2

mbilal2

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I hope you still have windows on it. Try this.

Remove any useless storage devices attached. Go to disk manager and delete multiple partitions. You should have just one single partition. This method will work for USBs, SD Cards, etc too. (Don't put in any quotes)

Press (WinKey + R)
Type "cmd"
Type "diskpart" in cmd
Type "list disk"

Here you will see all disks connected. Find the disk that is missing storage space. NOTE: Choose the correct disk or you will loose all your data!!


Now type "select disk x" where x is the disk number that is missing storage space.
Now type "select partition 1"
Type " delete partition"
Type "partition"
Type "create partition primary"

You should get a message saying "No usable free extent could be found. It may bla bla...."
Type "clean"
Type "create partition primary"

Now go to This PC and right click on the Drive. Format using NTFS and you should see the whole capacity. (You can do the same in disk management)


See if it helps.

Cheers
 
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mbilal2

mbilal2

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Wait you can't use the above mentioned method if you have it set as a primary drive. You need to attach it as a secondary drive. You can install windows on a large sized usb and attach the HDD as the secondary drive. Then do the above mentioned steps.
 
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soji08

soji08

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soji08

soji08

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i've tried TestDisk (but will try again) i've also used the Seagate and EasyRe troubleshooter softwares as well. i was going to try Ubuntu Gparted Live to see if could find other 'partitions' but i'm no longer optimistic of anything working.
 
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

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Mar 25, 2010
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This is fine but will pretty much destroy any chance of trying to recover the data on the missing disk space. This is only doable if there is no way to get the files back to get the drive back to the full size.
 
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