SOLVED Partition not showing after installing Windows 7

[dabooj]

Hi Guys,

I had a test version of windows 7 installed on my Sata drive which had 3 partitions on it (c:40gb, d:40gb, e:220). This worked fine.

I decided that i liked Windows 7 so i wanted to re-install it on a permanent basis so i went through the installation, formatted C: ONLY and installed windows 7 as a fresh copy. During installation, i noticed that c: & d: showed up correctly but e: was not showing. Instead, there was a 220gb unallocated space. I thoughht i'd ignore this as i have a lot of files on e: and i hoped that when i finished installing Windows 7 on C: then E: would show up correctly.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. I cannot see e: in my computer. When i go to disk management, i can see the 220gb space but no drive letter is assigned to it. Furthermore, when i right-click on the space, i cannot do any task (i.e. assign drive letter) except delete. Everything else is disabled. Also, the disk space being shown is size=218gb, free=218gb.

This looks like Windows 7 has decided to delete my drive without my permission. I have done absolutely nothing to the partition during or after installation yet i can't get it working.
I had quite a bit of work on this partition and i was wondering:

a) whether i can get the partition to work correctly on Win 7 without deleting/formatting?

b) if i have to format the partition, is there a way i can get my data off the partition (if it is still there)?

Regards,

Shuja

 

[clifford_cooley]

Hi dabooj - Welcome to w7forums

Are you dual booting with C: & D:?

I ran across this once and was able to copy my files from the space with a different OS. After copy was finished, I then reformated with Win7. I do hope there is an easier solution to this for you. You might can try a freeware partitioning solution. Maybe this would allow you to assign a drive letter without formating.

To recover lost partitions:
You might want to try TestDisk, which is a console application designed for data recovery. The free program can be used to fix partition table, recover deleted partitions or copy files from deleted partitions. Other features include recover or rebuild NTFS or FAT boot sector, fix FAT tables, undelete files from the file systems, etc.

Read more here - Best Free Partition Manager

 

[dabooj]

Found the issue causing the problem.
I tried the various solutions that have been mentioned but nothing seemed to work BUT i installed the partition wizard software (http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html) & when i viewed the disks within the PW, i could see the missing partition and i could explore the files.
Now, for some reason, the partition had been set as a hidden partition (i'm not sure where this setting can be set). Within partition wizard i was able to unhide the partition.
I could then go to windows 7 disk management & was able to assign the drive letter to the partition and the drive is working & my files are still on it.

Thanks for all your help guys.

Regards, Shuja

 

[Nibiru2012]

Partition Wizard Rocks! FTW! Plus it a free program and there is a CD ISO image available too for burning to CD for recovery.

 

[Kougar]

A hidden partition that Windows claims is there, empty, and ready for formatting? That's extremely odd, I'll have to remember that one. I'm glad you got all your data back!

 

[mehrdad.nd]

My Partition is Back ;-)

Found the issue causing the problem.
I tried the various solutions that have been mentioned but nothing seemed to work BUT i installed the partition wizard software (http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html) & when i viewed the disks within the PW, i could see the missing partition and i could explore the files.
Now, for some reason, the partition had been set as a hidden partition (i'm not sure where this setting can be set). Within partition wizard i was able to unhide the partition.
I could then go to windows 7 disk management & was able to assign the drive letter to the partition and the drive is working & my files are still on it.

Thanks for all your help guys.

Regards, Shuja

It's great and work for me . very simple and free software and really work .
at the first I am really impressed when saw my partition is came back.
Really Really useful software thank you

 

[tasza]

Hi,
I had ~230GB disk and the following partitions:
15GB Ext4 for Linux Ubuntu 12.04
35GB NTFS for Windows 7
180GB NTFS common partition for storage

Now, the problem was that the 180GB NTFS was not visible in Computer>Hard Drives on Windows 7. I installed Partition Wizard and the partition was not hidden or anything, it has "active and boot" status but... it had a star in the place where it should have a letter by which Windows recognizes this partition. I went to Partition>Change letter and changed it Now I can see my common partiton from under Windows!