Help ! Can't get my HD to Boot

What size was the file? Maybe it is the one you are after.

 

I didn't look to see how big it was. I was too busy trying out how I managed to take ownership of the drive and look at the files.

It was kinda hap-hazard.

 

You need to copy data from the corrupted OS to a good data partition so you can use it later.

 

No unallocated space.

 

The one PST file I found ( I found it again) was only 44.5MB. Not nearly big enough since it had a couple YEARS of emails.

Plus, the PST I found was on the WindowsBackupImage on the 2nd "Datapart" drive, which more than likely did not contain the 4th partition that actually had the outlook emails and calendar items. I am beginning to think I must concentrate on recovering the lost partition on the OS drive.

I am running Mini Partition Wizard on it right now.

 

Should I use Recuva or MiniTool Power Data Recovery or similar to try to recover the data and copy it to a working partition on one of the other drives?

Will one of those recovery software packages possibly locate the data that was in the missing partition even if the partition info is missing?

As mentioned, I am running that partition recovery tool right now. It's odd that the Partition Recovery wizard shows 1397.3 GB as Unallocated, yet Disk manager show it as OS.

 

Wow... I noticed some very weird "folder" on my DataPart disk which holds the WindowImageBackup.

It is named "TIM-PC" and has a small symbol of a CD and what appears to be a CD drive.

When I check it's "properties", it is 579GB and holds 9,908 filed , 58 folders. Pretty close to what the missing partition should have had. The whole thing is strange since the two Drives from my work desktop are only 1.5TB drives, so something does not add up correctly. The Disk Manager currently show the Partition size of the messed up "OS" HD as 1,388.10GB. So how is there room for another 597GB? It shows something is askew with the allocation tables/sizes.

When I click on it to see what it contains, there are two folders named "Backup Set 2016-1-26 11078" and "Backup Set 2016-4-04 150003"

Inside those are more folders that are 9-10 named "Backup Files" all with different dates. Inside one of those folders are over 800 "Backup Files" in ZIP format and when I unzipped some of them, they are all sorts of various files INCLUDING some PST files (actually a LOT of PST files, some very large too.)

I went back to the main folder (Tim-PC) and right clicked o it and a menu came up with several options and one of them was "Restore Options".

I clicked on it and and it popped up "Do you want to restore files from this backup. (At the top of that message window it said "Windows Backup).

I clicked on Restore and another window opened up and said to "select the backup that you want to restore the files from".

There were TWO possible selections.. and it's weird... because they were date ranges. The first choice was a "Back up period" of "4-4-2016 to 7-26-2016" and thither other period was "1-26-2016 to 3-28-2016".

I clicked on the more recent time period to see what would happen and...... I had options to search or browse for folders or files to restore.

So... what the heck is this? Do I have TWO backups? One is an "Image" and the other an actual "BackUp"? Both made by a windows program ?

Now that I think about it, I could sign in two screens, one was for the 4th partition and was called "Tim-PC". SO perhaps I have a fairly recent backup of emails, files etc.

I also noticed that the Image name under the WindowsImageBackup" is called "Tim-PC" also. Maybe I made ceated the image while logged into the missing 4th partition and that is what I have an image of.

What next ? (BTW.. The Mini Partition Wizard is still running and is at 79%.)

Can I "Restore" BOTH the "Backup" and the "Image" to separate media and then try to merge them somehow? It almost looks like the "Backup" has the info I need. AT least I see many PST files. I don't know if they contain the address book info or not.

 

Somebody named Tim had access to the PC?

 

Yes! That would be me. The Tim-PC was the sign-in for my personal partition. The other was work related.

 

Mini Tool Partition Wizard completed and discovered numerous items, many of them described as "BOOT".

What to do with them? Should I go onto the next partition recovery software and see what it comes up with ?

 

pratzert,

Did you say you have a spare, empty, 1.5 TB HD?

I forgot to ask, when did the RAW partition revert to NTFS?

 

Yes, a data backup and an image. But don't get excited as unless you chose Custom settings the data backup will just be files already in the image backup. So no advantages in having the data backup if you used default settings. But you won't know until you restore the image and then restore the data backup. When you restore the image you should see 500 GB of unallocated free space following the OS partition. The OS partition will restore to its original partition size. It won't fill the drive unless it did before the image was created. Then you can try to undelete the 4th partition. You can only undelete a partition from Unallocated Free space.

 

I believe it happed when I ran one of the chkdks /f scans.

I actually have a brand new 4TB drive sitting in the box. I had planned to ad it as a third drive to my Desktop at home. Could I use it to restore the image to ?

 

I guess the best plan would be to try to somehow backup/recover all the data on the OS drive first and then restore the image and then undelete the partition? Or, since the "backup" has the data, would I be better off restoring the data from the backup?

I want to be sure not to lose any of the data there on the drive in the image or backup.

Which would possibly be more reliable to restore... the image or the backup?

When I ran Mini Tools Partition Wizard, it found many items, and many marked as "Boot". Many of them seemed to be the same size. Shoul dI try to use th ePartition wizard to recover the partition or willI do even more damage? I can't decipher what these found partition bits mean or what they will do, or how it works.

There are a couple other free partition tools I could try.

 

Yes. We can sort out the MBR/GPT later. Make sure you do the image restore in the Work computer with the 4 TB HD empty. No partitions on the HD and as a MBR disk, not GPT. Don't try a different hardware restore.

If that's OK you could then restore the image to the original HD and try to undelete the 4th partition.

Avoid all those partitioning tools in case they mess up the undelete.

 

Thanks for all the help. I'll give it a go by putting the DATA drive that has the image and backup on it, and the new 4TB drive in the work desktop and boot from a win7 usb or CD then try to restore from image and see what happens.

 

Great. Follow the full instructions in Post #57. Including Diskpart.

 

Will do... enjoy your weekend!

 

You too!

 

Try these Win7 instructions. The earlier ones were for Win10.

boot your Windows disk (DVD or UFD)
On the Install Windows screen press Shift-F10 to get a Command Prompt
diskpart
list disk
....... I’ll assume that the boot HD is 0
select disk 0
list disk (do this to confirm. There will be a Star next to the selected disk)
clean
exit
exit (a second time)
Repair your computer
Restore your computer using a system image that you created earlier
Next
Use the latest available system image (recommended)
Format and repartition disks should be greyed out but to be safe click Exclude disks and put a tick in all disks except Disk 0
Next, Finish

 

Ok. Thanks!

 

Hi Brian K.

I just pulled the HD's out of the Home computer to take them to work and reinstall them. I also have the new 4TB drive.

I want to be clear on a couple of things.

I assume I should install only the new/empty 4TB drive as the primary drive in the same position as the old "OS" drive that was not booting. (Drive 0) Is that correct?

Then use the DATAPart HD that has the image on it to restore to the empty drive... correct?

I should not install the old OS drive at all.... correct ?

Why did you suggest I do it on the work computer? Something with the possible differences in the Hardware between the work and home systems ?

I have a Win7 (Ultimate) DVD and a Win7 USB to boot from, so all I should have to do is follow your instructions and keep my fingers crossed.

I have read that my system isn't capable of recognizing a HD larger than 4TB, but I think that Win7 has improvements to allow the system to recognize the 4TB.... correct ?

Thanks !

 

pratzert,

Correct.

Correct. Have both those HDs installed in the Work computer.

Correct. Keep it away from the computer for the time being. The plan is to restore the image to this HD later.

You need to have everything going for you. Restoring an image in another computer can introduce geometry changes which prevents the OS from booting in the original computer. Not always an issue but it's not recommended to do a restore in different hardware.

Because the 4 TB HD will have a MBR (because your Win7 is a MBR/Legacy install) only the first 2 TB of that HD will be usable. When you subsequently use that HD as a data drive you will format it as a GPT disk and the full 4 TB will be usable.

 

Is your Win7 32 or 64-bit?

I ask because a Win7 Ultimate WinPE is a 32-bit environment and won't restore an image of Win7 64-bit.

If your Win7 is 64-bit make a "Repair disk" on another Win7 64-bit system.