Norton Disk Doctor ate my Partition and won't give it back...

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Guest

Here's the lowdown: I installed Norton Systemworks 2005, went to Disk Doctor
and checked off "repair errors" and for it to scan empty HD space. It had to
reboot to give Disk Doctor exclusive access to the drive, and that's when the
trouble started. Since I tweaked my bootup to go fast as possible, I removed
the Windows logo screen with the animated bar under it. Apparently, it also
makes anything past that point invisible up until the login screen. It was
taking its time scanning the drive, and I like a moron grew impatient and
rebooted my system. When it started back up, it could not detect a partition
for the hard drive I was scanning, and it searched the drive for anything to
do with partitions to no avail. Now my F drive simply does not show up in My
Computer, but shows up with "no errors" in device manager and my BIOS can
still detect it. I just don't know how to get it back on track and can't
afford to lose everything on the drive.
 
Active Partition Recovery had fixed a similar issue for me. I got back
all of my information.
 
Kevin said:
Here's the lowdown: I installed Norton Systemworks 2005, went to Disk
Doctor
and checked off "repair errors" and for it to scan empty HD space. It had
to
reboot to give Disk Doctor exclusive access to the drive, and that's when
the
trouble started. Since I tweaked my bootup to go fast as possible, I
removed
the Windows logo screen with the animated bar under it. Apparently, it
also
makes anything past that point invisible up until the login screen. It was
taking its time scanning the drive, and I like a moron grew impatient and
rebooted my system. When it started back up, it could not detect a
partition
for the hard drive I was scanning, and it searched the drive for anything
to
do with partitions to no avail. Now my F drive simply does not show up in
My
Computer, but shows up with "no errors" in device manager and my BIOS can
still detect it. I just don't know how to get it back on track and can't
afford to lose everything on the drive.


Can you see the now hidden partition in the Disk Management applet
(diskmgmt.msc)? Maybe you have to reassign the partition a drive letter
(F:). While Disk Doctor might be moving around clusters (trying to recover
data from those with low retentivity with read/write errors and then mark
them bad), moving around the MFT or updating it, or doing something with the
journaling entries, I don't believe it touches the partition table in the
MBR (since the MBR is not within any partition to which you would have
assigned a drive designator). The partition table does contain a descriptor
of the file system used in each partition but the partition table only
records where are the primary partitions and the extended partitions (but
not any logical drives defined within extended partitions). You didn't
mention what type of partition you were checking.

The demo version at http://www.partition-recovery.com/ will only show you
what it *might* do for a partition recovery but won't let you do the
recovery until you pay them $30. I don't know what restrictions are
enforced for Acronis Disk Director .
 
diskmgmt.msc shows Drive 0 (My C drive) as healthy, and Drive 1 (was my F
drive) as:
Unknown
114.49GB
Not Initialized

and to the right displays it as 114.49 GB Unallocated.

I have to option to "Initialize disk" on Disk 1, but since this is all
something I have never dealt with before, I don't want to try anything I'm
not sure about. It's funny... I'm the tech support for my family but I
haven't the slightest clue when it comes to problems like this.

I tried the Partition-recovery demo and the simulated recovery didn't look
promising... I really am stuck here and open to suggestions.
 
Well, this got me somewhere. I make and ran a boot disk off the program you
suggested and it managed to get my hard drive to appear again. It now reads
as being in file system: "RAW". I searched through some other posts here and
read about a program called GetDataBack - I'll be looking into it shortly.
While I do, I'll listen to any other suggestions, warnings, or other advice
about this. The last thing I want to do is screw up after apparently making
progress.
 
Alright, I am in the process of using GetDataBack to copy what I need to my C
drive with what limited space I have left on it, and then will be burning it
onto DVD's to put back onto the drive after I reformat it. I would like to
thank you both for the help, you got me pointed in the right direction and
helped alleviate a LOT of stress I did not need. I can finally rest easy
knowing I have the data I needed from my drive and can start fresh without
worry.
 
Now that your data is safe, it might be appropriate to mention the
cardinal rule of computing: All important files must be backed up
regularly to an independent medium. If they don't get backed up
then, by definition, they are not important. "Regularly" depends
on your requirements. For a bank it is once every few seconds;
for small businesses it is once every day; for individuals it can
be once a week. It all depends how much data you can afford
to lose.

Many people ignore this rule until they suffer a major disaster.
Seeing how cheap hard disks in a USB case are, their attitude
is difficult to understand.
 
The drive has lost it's partition structure or it's partition "type".

This happens occasionally. To my knowledge no one has ever figured out "why"
it happens!

The fix is not for the faint of heart and there is one thing that you
absolutely need to know before you begin. What TYPE of FILE SYSTEM was being
used on the hard drive? If you are 100% certain that you know there is (may
be) a way to recover.

There is a little DOS program included with Partition Magic 8.01. It is
called ptedit. This program can only be used from within "pure DOS". When
you use Partition Magic 8.01 to create the 2 disk floppy set (the DOS
version of Partition Magic) this little program is placed in the set.

You have to boot the computer from disk 1 of the floppy set. Then insert
disk 2 when asked to. After you are in Partition Magic, EXIT from the
program. You will be back at the A: prompt. Re-insert floppy disk 1.

Now, type in ptedit and press enter. The program will start. This program
allows you to change the drive "type". It is imperative that you are certain
that you are working on the correct drive. You can choose drives at the top
of the program window. Once you have chosen the correct drive, click in the
**Line 1 | Type** box.

This will energize the "Set_Type" box at the bottom. Now click the mouse on
the "Set_Type" BOX. Look for the file system that you KNOW was being used.
There are many choices. Choose the correct file system and follow the
instructions from there.

NOTE: If you choose the wrong file system, and commit the change, you WILL
corrupt any information that is on the drive. This is absolute and
irrevocable!

I have successfully recovered about a dozen drives that have gone RAW, or
otherwise lost their partition structure, by using this great little DOS
program.

NOTE: The program CAN NOT be used from within Windows.

And "shame" on the computer manufacturers who deliver new computers without
a floppy drive installed!


There is also a Windows version of ptedit called ptedit32. The usage is the
same. Search Google to
find a source for this utility.


--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from: George Ankner
"If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!"
 
Richard Urban said:
The drive has lost it's partition structure or it's partition "type".

This happens occasionally. To my knowledge no one has ever figured out "why"
it happens!

The fix is not for the faint of heart and there is one thing that you
absolutely need to know before you begin. What TYPE of FILE SYSTEM was being
used on the hard drive? If you are 100% certain that you know there is (may
be) a way to recover.

There is a little DOS program included with Partition Magic 8.01. It is
called ptedit. This program can only be used from within "pure DOS". When
you use Partition Magic 8.01 to create the 2 disk floppy set (the DOS
version of Partition Magic) this little program is placed in the set.

You have to boot the computer from disk 1 of the floppy set. Then insert
disk 2 when asked to. After you are in Partition Magic, EXIT from the
program. You will be back at the A: prompt. Re-insert floppy disk 1.

Now, type in ptedit and press enter. The program will start. This program
allows you to change the drive "type". It is imperative that you are certain
that you are working on the correct drive. You can choose drives at the top
of the program window. Once you have chosen the correct drive, click in the
**Line 1 | Type** box.

This will energize the "Set_Type" box at the bottom. Now click the mouse on
the "Set_Type" BOX. Look for the file system that you KNOW was being used.
There are many choices. Choose the correct file system and follow the
instructions from there.

NOTE: If you choose the wrong file system, and commit the change, you WILL
corrupt any information that is on the drive. This is absolute and
irrevocable!

This is at variance with my own experience. I found that I could select
any partition type I liked and commit the change, reboot into a DOS
session to check the results of my change, then change it again if things
did not work as expected. The reason is simple: I changed one single
byte in the partition table, and there was no interference from some
operating system to that would make further changes.
 
Upon occasion, when I ran into this problem (the customer didn't know what
file system they were using) I lost all information on the drive while
trying to boot. But then again, it could have been caused by something
related.

On the drives where I am certain about the pre-existing file system I have
had 100% success (in coming back from the RAW condition).

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from: George Ankner
"If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!"
 
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