Data Recovery: Corrupted Partition Table Repair

A partition is a "part" or a subset of a disk space which is treated as a unit by the operating system. A partition table is a table that stores information about sizes and locations of each partition. If the partition table is damaged, we will have problems accessing data or not be unable to load operating system.

Symptoms of corrupted partition table

We know that partition table is in error when we receive warnings like "Non-System disk or disk error，replace disk and press a key to reboot"; "Error Loading Operating System", or "No ROM Basic，System Halted". These warnings will show up when the computer attempt to start and load the operating system.

What would the causes of partition damage be?

1. Virus. Virus infection is one of the major threats that could destroy partition table. Many destructive viruses damage the Master Boot Record and make it impossible to start the computer from the hard disk. For example, the CIH variant would target and attack BIOS and sabotage partition table in the process.

2. Mis-operation. If more than one operating system is installed on a hard disk at the same time, the uninstallation of one of them will result in partition table failure. Besides, if you delete primary partition directly, without deleting extended partition firstly, partition labels may not able to be correctly read.

3. File system environment. Current Windows operating systems give full support for NTFS. NTFS is the default file system to install programs. Thus, if a sudden power outage or computer shut down occurs when we are converting file system or dividing NTFS partition, partition table will probably be damaged.

4. Hardware failure. HDD failure or motherboard malfunctions will result in partition table damage as well.

How to fix Corrupted Partition Table

According to the causes, we suggest different approaches respectively.If it is caused by boot sector virus, you will be needing an anti-virus software boot disk to kill virus in DOS environment. Also, you can utilize a data recovery software to retrieve files without causing any secondary damage to your data.