'External' HD - All Data Gone, Partitions Still There
Nov 14, 2012
I've just experienced my 'external hard drive' not letting me access any data. I put 'external hard drive' in apostrophes, as it's actually an old SATA Internal Hard drive, in an external case.The hard drive was partitioned into two partitions. One about 100GB large which had Windows 7 installed on it, from when I used it inside my desktop. Another which was encrypted with TrueCrypt and was about 800GB large. I tried loading the second partition with Truecrypt, but the computer locked up. In the end I had to turn off the computer manually by the power.I booted up and I couldn't see the hard drives at all - not even in Computer Management. I turned the HD power on and off a couple times and eventually they were viewable - only they'd turned into three partitions, with an extra 24GB partition as the active, primary partition. It might've been that way before but not viewable in My Computer. Now I can see the sizes of the partition in Computer Management, but they show as 0MB in My Computer, as if I'd not formatted them. When I try open them in My Computer though, it lets me open them - it doesn't tell me they need formatting.I'm currently running TestDisk, but it can only see the 24GB partition. how I can recover my data?
Edit: TestDisk Results: No Recoverable Partition Found.Also noticed file system now says RAW.
Im not sure if this is the right section, if in the wrong section a mod can move it. Well anyway i will be installing windows 7 over my current windows 7 RC install soon. Im planning on creating two partitions, one for the OS and another for Music, videos, pics etc.
But my question is would it be smart to create a partition for program files? because if i have all my program files in in drive D lets say, and then i format C to install windows 7, the programs wont work because the necessary registry values wont be registered. Whats the point of having a separate partition for program files then?
I really want to know this so that when i format and finally install Windows 7 i will then know what size to create the OS (C: ) partition.
While installing Fedora 12, it deleted all the 5 partitions i had currently i have only 1 partition since fedora messed everything up all the data has been lost and m not even able to logon to Fedora i have deleted fedora and m in the process of installing XP during the installation of XP, i deleted the one partition i had and then formatted it using the NTFS system so that i cud install XP. is there any way i cud recover all the data i had?.i had 5 partitions with c,d,e,f and z drive total 500 GB..
A little background on my system's configuration. My system was/is configured is a two disk RAID0 with a system partition and two other partition for Windows and programs. I'm wanting to migrate the partitions/data to a single disk system. I created a system image using both the Windows backup software and Novabackup. The problem I'm having is restoring either of those images to a single disk. Is it possible to restore an image from a RAID configuration to a single disk? If so, what am I missing? No matter which image I try to restore from, I either get a fail from Windows or can't be done in so many words from Novabackup. I just want the RAID image on a single disk.
I don't know what happen, but im having problems with my external hard drive. I have 3 partition in it, but only the first one is detecting, the other two doesn't appear at all then a sign pops up saying i have to format it, i hit cancel and all 3 drives disappear. seems like hard drive failure. I have a lot of important data on the other drives, is there any way to recover it myself? I really don't want to pay 500+ dollars to recover the data off the drive.
I work with three kinds of computers. One is on my desktop, new windows 7, dual core, that I use for lesson planning. The second are the computers in the classrooms. I am guessing that they are all almost identical, xp purchased 4 years ago. The third is a server used in the computer lab. I would like to buy an external hd and partition it 3 ways - and install win 7 (english) while it is hooked up to my desktop, install xp (english) while it is hooked up to one of the classroom computers and then install another OS while it is hooked up to the server. I want to be able to connect the hd to the computer, power it on and choose either either partition d:, e: or f: depending on the computer it is hooked up to. I know that I can boot from an external hd but I have never tried putting 3 OS, one to each partition, on an external HD.
I once had a dual-boot Windows XP Professional SP3 and Windows 7 Professional. Partition 1 could be accessed from both OS, but Windows 7 could not and still cannot 'see' Partitions 2 and 3. While it was still a dual-boot, switching back and forth between the systems was the only way I could access the data in Partitions 2&3 from Windows XP. Now that I have a clean install of Windows 7 only, (stupid me to have forgotten this problem) I cannot access the files at all. I have tried restarting the system, reinstalling the HD driver, replugging the HD, and the problem still persists. What I have managed so far:
> Under 'Device Manager' >> No warning. All drivers are updated.
> Under 'My Computer' >> Only Partition 1 is listed and accessible
> Under 'Computer Management' > 'Disk Management' >> All three partitions are in the disk's table. The 2nd and 3rd partitions are listed with blue bars, total space allocated and no other information. An attempt to get Properties or assign drive letters produces an error message "... Disk Managaement control view is not up-to-date ... ".
> Under 'partdisk' >> 'list disk' shows correctly sized Disk at 700 GB >> 'list volume' shows only up to Partition 1 of the external HD. >> After selecting the external HD, 'list partition' shows all 3 partitions with correct sizes and offsets.
> With MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition Disk 1_______ G: Partition 1 *: Partition 2 *: Partition 3 >> All 3 partitions can be explored (whew ...) >> The two 'missing' partitions were not hidden. >> However, when assigning the drive letters to the partitions, the drive letters only stay in front of the partitions' names until I clicked Apply. After which, the asterisks came back again. (I haven't found any way to assign the drive letter in Partition Wizard Bootable CD
I have Asus N55SF laptop, with Windows 7 SP1 64 bit. Also, I have 2 external hard drives. One with USB 3.0, and one USB 2.0. Following problems, I am going to describe below, happen to the both of them. Just to mention, external drives are tested on desktop computer and following problems do not happen.
Let me now describe what happens when I try certain actions: - When I try to copy large files (10 or more GB) I get an error that destination is no longer visible. External drives disappear from My Computer and I can't do safe remove. But when I copy files using programs FastCopy or TeraCopy everything copies well and drives do not disappear. - When I try to do Windows Backup and encrypt them using BitLocker drives also disappear, and are not visible within OS.
There is a difference between external hard with USB 3.0 port and the one with 2.0 port: - When one with 3.0 disappears after described actions I can't see it from Device Manager, I can see it only after windows reboot. USB 3.0 disk connects to one USB 3.0 port on laptop. - When one with 2.0 port disappears I can see it from Device Manager, and I only have to unplug it, and plug it in again to see it. USB 2.0 disk connects to 2 USB 2.0 ports on laptop.
Common to both disks is that when then disappear from My computer the diode on the external disk cases are still flashing, what probably means that they have some power. Both disk are formated to NTFS, and Allocation unit size is set to: Default. Their removal policy is set to: Better performance (default). On laptop I only have Windows, Office and Asus drivers. Antivirus is: MSE.
I have an Asus x53e running win 7 home premium. Less than 3 months old. Due to my screw up, I reinstalled the OS. Laptop had me make 4 discs when I first got it to enable me to do so. Now, when I go through the Control Panel -> Back Up Your Computer -> Recover system settings, and attempt to apply the back up, it prompts me for the System Repair Disc. I've attempted to put in discs 1 - 4 with no luck. I restored from the disc image, but it didn't give me the actual programs and applications, just short cuts.
I have a 64 bit Asus laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium. My laptop recently had a hard drive problem and i had to get it removed and put in another one. My original hard drive was put in a case and i can use it as an external hard drive now. I had not done any back up or anything (new here), and now i need my data on the new hard drive from the old hard drive.
I had a message about errors when I plugged in my WD external hard drive. I let the Error Checking run and when it finished it said I needed to format the disk. I cancelled this and looked in my computer and although the drive appeared, no details (i.e. space usage) was present.
I re-ran Error Checking with "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors" checked. After running this the drive appeared properly in My Computer.
However there are many files missing, and the space usage of what is there doesn't match up with what my computer says.
Files I can physically see: ~ 120 Gb. Space usage according to Explorer: ~420 Gb. So it looks like tha data may still be there but Windows can't see it? Edit: BTW, forgot to say, all this is booted into Windows 7 not XP on my dual boot system.
I have windows 7 OS from last few days I am unable to copy,paste & delete data from any external drive.I have updated Antivirus I have scanned my PC but atlast result is same.
I have a 2001 vintage Western Digital Passport external harddrive to which backup data from my recently defunct computer with XP operating system has been transfered.
Is there an uncomplicated way to transfer this data from the external harddrive to my new computer with Windows 7 operating system?
My computer shows the space and everything else but doesnt show the folder and files in it like pictures and videos... and also i cant copy anything to it... on other computer there is no problem.
removed the drive from the enclosure and got a SATA>USB dock thing for it. it didn't appear in the Computer with my internal drives but was visible in diskmgmt as "Healthy (Active, Recovery Partition)" but with the File System column empty and no letter assigned. right click only offers a menu with "Help" on it. used diskpart to assign a letter and it now appears in Computer but says all its capacity (except ~250mb) is free and, when I open it, there are no files to see, only a folder "Recovery", which is empty. in diskmgmt it still has no letter assigned. used a program called Recuva and it shows me some small files but nothing I recognise.
my laptop has gone out of order,however,I have got a new one and I want to transfer the data from the old one to te new one.Please note that the old one doesn't start up at all.
I am attempting to help my friend. Has old laptop, been making system image backups with Macrium Free on external usb WD Hardrive. Now wishes to get new laptop and transfer pertinent data and programs to the new computer. I haven't a clue. He had not installed the HD programming, using macrium instead.
Every time i plug my external storage device to my computer, i am asked to "you need to format the disk in drive F: Before you can use it. Do you want to format it?" I checked my drive and its File system is RAW. I don't want format it because all my important data are in it.
I have an external media player with a 500GB internal Hard Drive (HD). I have purchased a 2 TB HD and would like to transfer my data from the old drive to the new drive. They are connected to my computer by USB
I have a WD Passport, vintage 2007. I cannot access some large files that I created several years ago that I want to see, and then dump so I can use the file for backup for my new computer.
I have always backed my personal hard drives using images for easy restoration
However i now have 2 PCs that need backup performed and they just want the data so an image is not necessary thus i only want the important data ie; documents and settings important files no junk such as updates or temp files
I would prefer to remove the hard drives and plug it into another pc to perform the backup instead of doing the back up from the actual machine
One of my friends has a windows 7 computer with an account for himself, his mother and his 2 sisters. All the home directorys are stored in drive C. Partition D is shared. The question is, how to get a partition layout like this?
Partition 1: OS + programs Partition 2: home partition for himself Partition 3: home partition for his mother Partition 4: home partition for his sister Partition 5: home partition for his other sister Partition 6: shared partition for some photos.
So I've been using my 64GB ssd as my windows 7 boot drive and i have a 1TB hdd as my data drive. Recently the my computer has begun to freeze up with errors like "explorer.exe" has stopped responding or "windows" has stopped responding and half of the time when i try to boot it says it cant find windows. This has lead me to believe that my ssd is dying despite being only a year old. I need to RMA my ssd but to do that i would be losing my boot drive for weeks. So I thought id try to create a system image so that i can simply put my boot drive on my hdd, but when i try to create the image it says that the image would be 711GB because its including all of my hdd (which contains all my user libraries and downloads). My question is: how do I make windows stop thinking that my hdd is a system drive so that I can create a reasonably sized image, or more generally: how can i easily move my boot drive to my hdd? Also, I've read some posts about using "easyBCD" to accomplish the latter but I'm not sure that's exactly what i need in this situation.
