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Urgent Problem....volume deleted unintentionally

C

champion-7891

Member
Hello!
I bought a system today: i5 2500K, P8P67, 8gb corsair value, COrsair GS700:

Ok...now ive had a problem the sequence of which is:
1) i added all 4 of my HHDs..but the system did not boot into windows. I already had an old instllation of Win 7 in one of them
2) removed all HDDS and just added boot HDD
3) after few attempts i was able to boot
4) now i added 2 HDDS, 1TB (with data) and 2TB (new,no data)
5) the 1 TB showed briefly in windows..i started computer management to create a volme for 2TB. i was then asked to select MBR or GUID (i thnk) for sisk 0 and disc 1). Then i created a partition for the 2 TB disk. but the 1 TB went to unallocated space. i did not specificaly delete it!
6) Even when booting from my old PC with the same windows installation...i am unable to view contents of the 1 TB drive
7) please please tell me how to recover that partition (the 1 TB one). It has important data. it was'nt a dynamic volume i think, but a NTFS formatted basic type. Also, will adding other disks that have data cause the same problem?
 
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sorry..either i didnt get you or you didnt understand what happened...somehow my whole volume got deleted....became unallocated space....and when i tried it on my old PC, it remained unallocated...i need to recover it.....
 
I believe champion is right - it should be possible to get it back. I once managed to overwrite my disk's MBR, partition table, and part of the first partition (which fortunately wasn't important!) I eventually found some Linux software to detect the missing partition and rebuild my partition table (excluding the first partition), and ran it from a LiveCD.

Now, I can't remember what that software was - it may have been this. But since you have a working Windows install, this software looks promising.
 
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If you move the drives around they get renumbered with a new drive letter. Then you cant tell what the main drive is. Then when you delete it you will be sorry. Be careful. You can connect all the drives and just format all of them.
 
@ corkyg...the link you provided i've checked it out....that was for FAT32 on win 2000 or XP...i have WIn 7 which does not have the utility, dmdiag, i beleive, that was used by the person in the forum
 
@Ken G6...thanks...but that second link has a possible issue...in the instructions it says: "After Scan finishes, you will see the full list of found partitions. Now, you can add any found partition to the system by mounting and assigning a letter to it.

All partitions are mounted in the read-only mode. You won't be able to alter files on such partitions, but only to copy files off that partition. This guarantees that the data cannot be altered by the operating system or any software (including malware)."

which would imply that i cudnt change files...well that might be OK since i had to copy these files on another disk...but if i can actualy recover it as a normal windows drive, that'd be great!
 
Champ, the #1 rule of data recovery is that once you encounter an error, DO NOT WRITE TO THE DISK ANY MORE. That is why Ken's software mounts it read only. You have a brand new 2TB drive to to copy data to, so use that. Then format the 1TB and copy data back. If your data is really that important, a few hours copying data shouldn't be a big deal.

Also, you should let this experience be a lesson about the importance of proper backups. Remember, any data that you only have a single copy of is data that you don't mind losing.
 
Ok i will try that...also used testdisk but a basic analyze showed that filesystem is corrupt...
@Mfenn...can you explain y this happened? I used a boot drive from an olkder system without installing a fresh OS...was that the reason...btw boot drive and the deleted volume are separate physical disks
 
ok here's another thing: disk 0 (boot drive with windows), disk 1(1 TB), disc 2 (2 TB empty)....i am in windows....disk 0 and disk 1 are being shown in my computer...disc 2 is not...i enter disk management in computer managment....it immediately prompts me to select either MBR or GUID for disk 0 and disk 1...i click OK ( i thnk it was set as MBR)...then i make disk 2 into a volume, 2TB...next i go to my computer, disk 1's volume is vanished....check in computer management, and shown as unallocated...could you spot something there...

Also, I ran the software Ken mentioned http://findandmount.com/howtouse/ . I only have tried the fast intellectual scan and it failed to find any partitions....any ideas how to proceed?
 
champion-7891 said:
ok here's another thing: disk 0 (boot drive with windows), disk 1(1 TB), disc 2 (2 TB empty)....i am in windows....disk 0 and disk 1 are being shown in my computer...disc 2 is not...i enter disk management in computer managment....it immediately prompts me to select either MBR or GUID for disk 0 and disk 1...i click OK ( i thnk it was set as MBR)...then i make disk 2 into a volume, 2TB...next i go to my computer, disk 1's volume is vanished....check in computer management, and shown as unallocated...could you spot something there...
Click to expand...

Well, if it prompted you to select a partition table for disks 0 and 1, then that means it thought that they were uninitialized for some reason and then went ahead and reinitialized.

champion-7891 said:
Also, I ran the software Ken mentioned http://findandmount.com/howtouse/ . I only have tried the fast intellectual scan and it failed to find any partitions....any ideas how to proceed?
Click to expand...

Try the more thorough scans.
 
Ok I will use the thorough scan and update...

secondly...now I have set SATA mode in UEFI to AHCI and enabled hot swap for all 3G and 6G ports...and freshly installed win 7 x64...can I connect my other HDDs without having a recurrence of the problem above?
 
I cant believe there were multiple people telling you to format the drive. wow epic fail. Glad you didnt take that advice. Whenever I have a drive problem I always start by isolating the drive. For example in your situation I'd remove the 2TB drive.
 
champion-7891 said:
Hey thanks guys! I was able to recover the volume using TestDisk...thanks a lot for your help!
Click to expand...

Glad you got it working!

champion-7891 said:
Ok I will use the thorough scan and update...

secondly...now I have set SATA mode in UEFI to AHCI and enabled hot swap for all 3G and 6G ports...and freshly installed win 7 x64...can I connect my other HDDs without having a recurrence of the problem above?
Click to expand...

That won't really affect how Windows sees the partitions, so go for it. Remember that you may need to update your registry enable AHCI beforehand.

sm625 said:
I cant believe there were multiple people telling you to format the drive. wow epic fail. Glad you didnt take that advice. Whenever I have a drive problem I always start by isolating the drive. For example in your situation I'd remove the 2TB drive.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure people were telling him to freshly format the 1TB drive after he had recovered his data to a different drive.
 
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