Data Recovery: Partition Recovery Software

Lost or damaged drive partitions may cause serious data loss if not handled properly. Depending on which partitions are damaged or lost, the consequences may vary from inaccessible files to a unbootable operating system.To solve the partition problem, we should first take a look at what are partitions and what do they do.

What Are Partitions?

When referring to a computer hard drive, a partition is a region of the hard drive that is separated from other regions. By dividing the hard drive into segments, the operating system can manage them separately. This reduces the general data loss risk as the failure of one partition will not have negative effects on other partitions. For hard disk drives, partitions keep frequently used files and programs near each other and thus improve the overall computer efficiency.

What Is Partition Table?

Since a hard drive is divided into many separate partitions, a record is created by the operating system about the locations and sizes of each partition. This record is called partition table or partition map. Different operating systems have their own standard for the layout of partition table: for Windows OS, it is called Master Boot Record (MBR) partition table; for mac OS it is called Apple partition map (APM). GUID Partition Table (GTP) is a new emerging partition table standard that is aiming to unify the layout for partition table on storage devices.

A partition table is essential for the operating system to keep track of each partition. Requests to access certain files will firstly be directed to partition table for location information and then to the actual corresponding files. 

Partition Lost or Damaged

Depending on the which partition is damaged, you may experience difference errors.

If your boot partition is lost or damaged, you will not be able to boot your computer at all. You will 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 but fail to load the operating system. If it is other partitions rather than the boot partition is lost or damaged, the hard drive space which is originally taken will appear as unallocated in Disk Management. You will not be able to access any of the files stored in that blank part. 

There are several reasons that can cause partition problems:

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. Human error. You may delete a partition by accident when poking around the Disk Management. Shutting down the computer while dividing partitions or converting filesystems may lead to partition table damage.

3. Hardware failure. Hard disk drive bad sectors or motherboard malfunctions will result in partition table damage as well.

How to Fix Partition Problems and Recover Data

1. Fixing Master Boot Record

Fixing the MBR and other boot problems in Windows requires installation disk or recovery disk to enter the recovery environment. Once you are in the recovery environment, you can access the Command Prompt to try to fix the MBR. Enter the following command and then press enter:

         bootrec.exe /FixMbr

If it successfully repairs your MBR, you should be greeted with the message The operation completed successfully.

2. Using Recovery Software

While the above command can fix your MBR, sometimes it is not enough. And it can not recover deleted partitions for you. If you are concerned that fiddling with the partition may cause permanent damage to the data within them, H Data Recovery is a good choice for you. H Data Recovery tool offers a special module designed to recover files from lost or damaged partitions.

Fix "Access Denied" Error and Recover from External Hard Drive

If you receive the "Location is not Available, X:/ is Not Accessible, Access is Denied" error while trying to open a folder in Windows or double-clicking a certain drive, read on for tips on how to diagnose the problem and retrieve files.

Check for Connection Problem

Let's start with the obvious. Make sure the external drive is not loosely connected. The USB cable should be plugged in firmly on both ends. Unplug your external HDD and try some other ports to see if you have dead USB ports. If you’ve plugged the drive into a USB hub, try connecting it to the computer instead. Some USB hubs won’t provide enough power for your external drive to function. Also, if you are using a desktop PC, try the back USB ports rather than the front USB port. There could be some differences in power level. After you tried all the ports and cables, try connecting the external HDD to another computer. If it works on another computer then you'll know that your computer system is having some issues. If the HDD still cannot be recognized, then it is malfunctioning and needs to be fixed.

Check for Permission and Encryption

Right-click on the volume and select Properties. Switch to Security tab, under Group or user names, highlight your user account name. Click Edit. Tick Full control, Modify and other options with a check mark under Allow, then Apply. Click OK to leave. Recheck the status of issue to see if you can access the files now.

Check for Partition Corruption

Diagnose the disk you are having trouble with Command Prompt.

Click Start, select Run and enter "chkdsk drive_letter :/r" (quotes not included). Tab Enter to start the disk check process. This command requires your disk to be locked. If it failed to lock the disk, system will ask you if you want to run the disk check next time you start the computer. Never power off the computer while checking is in progress! Damage could be done to your disk if you do so! This interface will automatically close when the checking is done. Then, try to access your folder or drive to see if the problem has been solved. 

Check for Virus Infection and Anti-Virus Settings

Scan your whole system with your favorite anti-virus software. After the full scan, restart the computer to check if the problem has been solved. Also check the client policy for external drive scanning to make sure the anti-virus is not blocking you from access the external hard drive.

Utilize a Recovery Software to Retrieve Data

If the above methods all fails, you can use a professional data recovery software to save your important files. H Data Recovery Software can recover inaccessible files from hard drives with partitions corrupted or damaged. Remember to save your recovered data to another drive or partition to avoid overwriting. After you get your files back, format the disk partition and the issue should be solved. 

How Do I Recover Files from a Dead Computer

If your computer suddenly dies and won't boot, it can be due to operating problems or hardware issues. Whatever the cause, don't panic or rush to reinstall the OS. We need to find a way to rescue important data first. Here are some tips that can help you to get your computer booted and your valuable data recovered.

Boot from a Restore Disc or Recovery Drive

Often when your computer fails to boot, it's because the operating system is damaged. If this is the case, you can use the restore disc to recover your files.
With many operating systems, restore disc such as Linux live CD for Linux OS or Windows Recover drive can be created to handle situations like this. If you have prepared a restore disc or a recovery drive before, simply insert it into the computer and start it up. After the computer boots from the disc, you can enter the Windows installation environment and restore from your system image or repair your system. 

If you don't have any file backups, here is a little trick that allows you to salvage files:

1. Open the Command Prompt in Windows installation environment.
2. Type Notepad and hit Enter key to launch Notepad application.
3. Click File and select Open...
4. You can use this Open dialog as a Windows Explorer window to browse and copy files to your USB flash drives or external hard drives

Repair the MBR

Master boot record (MBR) is essential for booting. It holds the information on how the logical partitions, containing file systems, are organized on that medium. 

We can use the Bootrec.exe in Windows recovery environment to repair, fix or rebuild the MBR. Enter Command Prompt in Windows Recovery Environment and type in 

• bootrec /RebuildBcd
• bootrec /fixMbr
• bootrec /fixboot
• Exit

Reboot your computer to check if the MBR has been repaired. 

Pull out the Hard Drives

If you cannot even boot from restore discs, then there are possible hardware problems with your computer. There are chances that your hard drive is not at fault. You can open up you computer, pull out the hard drive and connect it to another computer to transfer all the important files.

If it is a laptop we're talking about, you should know that opening up your laptop will void your warranty so think twice before you do it. Also, opening laptops are relatively harder than desktop computers. If you find it too hard for you, take it to a PC repair stop for help.

To keep regular backup files and prepare a recovery disc is important, you can learn how to prepare system image files and backup files from our previous articles.

How to Recover Files from Memory Cards

A memory card or flash card is an electronic flash memory data storage device used for storing digital information. These are commonly used in portable electronic devices, such as digital cameras, mobile phones, laptop computers, tablets, video game consoles...

There are various forms of memory cards. The most common memory cards nowadays are SD cards, microSD cards, CompactFlash and miniSD cards. Unlike built-in storage, many memory cards are designed with portability in mind and can be removed and accessed on other devices. The frequent plug in and out makes memory cards prone to damage and potential data loss. You might have received error messages like "The file or directory is corrupted or unreadable" or "Disk in drive X:\ is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?"

When we cannot access the data within Memory cards, we can try to recover files from memory cards with the tips provided below:

Check Errors Using CMD

We can check memory cards with chkdsk in Command Prompt for logic errors.
The chkdsk command line is short for "check disk". It verifies the file system integrity of a volume and fixes logical file system errors. It can also check for bad sectors and mark them.

There are several parameters for chkdsk command. Chkdsk /f fixes logical error on the memory cards such as file system corruption, while chkdsk /r fixes logical errors as well as checks for bad sectors. Chkdsk /r analyzes the drive and attempts to relocate data it finds to good sectors. It also marks the bad sectors so that these bad sectors will not be used again, which effectively removes the bad sectors from the system. If used without parameters, chkdsk displays only the status of the volume and does not fix any errors.

Here's how to fix your memory card errors:

1. Insert your memory card into a USB memory card adapter. Plug the USB adapter into a USB port on your computer. Windows automatically recognizes the device and assigns a drive letter to it. 

2. Go to the start menu, type in cmd in a search bar, hit enter and then you can see cmd. exe listed. You can also press Windows key + R to quick access the Command Prompt.

3. Type in "chkdsk drive_letter: /r" (quotes not included). For example, if "H" is assigned to your memory card, type "chkdsk h: /r".

4. Wait until the "chkdsk" program finishes checking your memory card for structure corruption. When it is done, you're prompted to save lost chains into files. Click the “Yes” option. In a few moments, "chkdsk" will display all of your lost data files that have been repaired on your computer.

5. Exit to Desktop and enter Computer. Double click on the memory card drive letter to check if it has been successfully fixed.

Recover Files Using Data Recovery Software

Sometimes the memory cards suffer from partition lost or RAW  problems. In these cases, the computer will fail to recognize memory cards and will not assign drive letters to them. We can attempt to recover the inaccessible files using 3rd party utilities such as H Data Recovery Software.

H Data file recovery is a fully-featured data recovery software. It is able to recover data in most data loss situations, recovering from memory cards with lost or damaged partition included! Here is the step-by-step tutorial:

Step 1. Install and launch H Data Recovery Software.

Step 2. Insert the memory card into a USB card adapter and plug your card adapter into your computer. Select the Flash Memory Recovery module by clicking it. The software will automatically detect all the flash memory cards currently connected to this computer. Choose your memory card and click Next.

Step 3. H Data Recovery will scan the memory card file system and try to find and reconstitute the files. When the scan is complete, you will be able to see the list of all recoverable files. If you act quick enough after the format, the chance of a complete recovery is very high.

Step 4. Select all the files you want to restore, and click the Next button. Choose a place you want to restore these files to.

Free up Drive Space in Windows

Although the storage capacity of hard drives is expanding each year, files are also getting larger. High-definition movies, lossless music files and photo-realistic games quickly and quietly eat up the drive space. If your PC is running low on storage, here are some tips for you to free up some space.

1. Run Disk Cleanup Tool

Disk Cleanup is a Windows built-in tool designed to delete unwanted temporary files and junks.

You can find it under Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup. Then you could select a volume to clean. The other way to access Disk Cleanup is to right-click the drive you wish to clean in File Explorer, select Properties, and click the Disk Cleanup button under General tab.

After the tool finishes the scanning, you will see a list of options that could be cleaned, including cached Web pages, temporary application files, reports from Windows Error Reporting, Recycle Bin files and so on. If you updated your system from an older version of Windows, you will see a folder called Windows.old that is taking up a considerable amount of space.

Windows.old is not something new that comes with the free Windows 10 upgrade. Starting with Vista, when you "upgrade install" (upgrade from one version of Windows to another with a new copy of Windows), a windows.old folder will be created. The Windows.old folder contains all the files and data from your previous Windows installation, like Windows system files, installed program settings and different users accounts' files. It is a backup file in case you want to revert to the old version, or you find something missing and you want to do some digging around. 

Select the types of files you want to delete and click OK. You can go ahead and delete the Windows.old without any problem as long as you don't want to downgrade and you have every important file you need from the old version.

2. Clear Application Cache Files

Windows Disk Cleanup cleans junks and temp files created by Windows operating system, but it doesn’t affect temporary files used by other programs. Various web browsers create a lot of cache files to reduce Internet access time; various 3D design or video editing software can generate gigabytes of preview files to reduce the staggering when you preview your works. 

For example, in Chrome, click the More icon in the upper-right corner, On your browser toolbar, click More icon (three dots). Select More tools, and then click Clear browsing data. In the "Clear browsing data" box, click the checkboxes for different options. Click Clear browsing data to clear all the caches.

Before you clear application caches, you should know that deleting these files will potentially affect the efficiency when you access files and these caches will continue to be created as you use these applications.

3. Reduce the Recycle Bin size

Recycle Bin is a virtual folder that stores the information of files deleted in Window Explorer by users. It doesn't have a path or a fixed capacity. The capacity of the Recycle Bin is determined by each underlying volume size.
In Windows operating systems with NTFS filesystem, each volume has a $Recycle.Bin folder under it, which normally is set to Hidden. The capacity of Recycle Bin is the total size of each $Recycle.Bin combined. The calculation might vary in different versions of Windows but start with Windows Vista, the algorithm for default $Recycle.Bin size is ten percent of the first 40GB of volume size/quota, and five percent of any remaining volume/quota above 40GB. You can manually set the capacity of each recycle bin.

Right-click on the Recycle Bin icon and select Properties. Select the Recycle Bin Location for the drive you wish to change the Maximum size for. Select Custom Size and set the Maximum size in MB for storage you want. Click on Apply. Repeat the above steps to change the recycle bin size on other volumes.
When you finished tweaking the values, click OK to leave.

4. Reduce the Maximum Space Used for System Protection

System protection regularly creates information about system files. It can also keep copies fo system settings and previous versions of files. You can reduce the amount of hard disk space allocated to System Restore. By doing so, you will have fewer restore points available as older points will be replaced by new ones more frequently.

When you are freeing up drive space, you could sometimes inadvertently delete files you still need. When this happens, act quickly to prepare for data recovery and stop putting new files into your hard drive. The chance of a successful data recovery is very high when you act quickly and select a proper tool.

Can We Recover Files from Hard Drives Formatted Multiple Times?

How do I recover photos from memory card which was formatted three times? Does re-format a hard drive multiple times make any difference?

The biggest concern when disposing of old computers or other electronic devices is the personal or sensitive data doesn't get into the wrong hands. We've discussed how to safely and responsibly dispose of storage devices without raising potential privacy breach risks. But how about format the storage devices multiple times? Will it make the data recoverable? What if I accidentally formatted a hard drive twice and want to recover the files stored inside?

There are actually different types of formatting processes. In Windows operating systems, there are two kinds of format: quick format and full format. As indicated by their name, they differ in the amount of time needed to complete a formatting. However, there is more behind this seemingly obvious difference.

A quick format will only erase the file table from the filesystem. The operating system will not locate any files without their index so when you look at the hard drive you would not see any data and assume the drive is erased. In fact, the files are actually still there untouched and can be accessed again with the right tool. This is how software like H Data Recovery Software can recover data from formatted disks. Their special algorithm enables you to scan, locate and reconstruct the deleted files.

A Full format will write zero to every sector of the drive to overwrite old data. This write-zero process is also known as erasing. The exact amount of time required to complete the process depends on the capacity of the HDD. The larger the capacity the longer it will take. As a Full Format would wipe your drives clean, the data stored on them will become unrecoverable. This is very useful when you are disposing of or recycling your hard drives containing senstive or personal information.

How to Perform Different Format

1. In Windows Explorer

In Windows Explorer, right-click on the drive you wish to format and click Format... Option. Check the Quick format check box to perform a quick format of the select drive. Leave it unchecked to perform a full format instead.

2. In Command Prompt

You can also use the command format to execute the format, and choose to set the file systems along the way.

Please note that beginning in Windows Vista, by default the format drive: command equals to format drive: /p, which writes zeros to the whole disk once, unless you specifically use the quick format command format drive: /q. In Windows XP and earlier versions of Windows, the format command does not perform the basic drive sanitation. You can repeat the write zero process multiple times by adding a count to the command, for example, format d: /fs:NTFS /p:3 will zero-fill the D: drive 3 times and set the file system to NTFS .

In Conclusion

So, back to the question. Does formatting a drive multiple times make the data unrecoverable? It all depends on how you execute the format. If you quick format a hard drive, the number of repeated times does hardly matter. You can recover the lost data with software like H Data Recovery painlessly. If you perform a full format, even with one pass of zero-fill (overwrite with zero once), the data will be very likely unrecoverable. On the other hand, it is a good way to dispose of personal data.

How to Recover Files from Lost Partitions

A storage device must have at least one partition before a file system can be set up and store data. The partition can contain all of the storage space on the drive or just some of it. On many storage devices, a single partition will often take up the entire drive.

Many hard drives come with a partition already set up so we can jump straight to the formatting step. We can have the partition formatted with a file system such as the NTFS file system on Windows drives, FAT32 file system for removable drives, HFS+ file system on Mac computers, or the ext4 file system on Linux. Files are then written to that file system on the partition.

When partitions are lost, the drive returns to its original unallocated raw state. When a hard drive or a partition becomes RAW, it means its filesystem cannot be recognized by the computer and therefore is unable to be mounted as a drive. Since the computer can't see any filesystem, it prompts you to format it before you can use this drive.

Partition lost is not as common as data loss. It could happen for various reasons: HDD failure, corrupted partition table and so on. Sometimes we know a partition is lost because we accidentally pressed the wrong key and deleted it. 
When a partition is lost, all data saved in it will become inaccessible. If there’s no important data in the missing partition, we can easily solve the problem by creating a new partition or repartitioning the hard drive. However, it is often not the case. Most of the time, the lost partition contains a lot of valuable data and the loss of them would bring us enormous troubles. 

The easiest way to recover lost partitions would be using a third party software. H Data Recovery Software features a module designed to tackle this problem. 

Here's how to recover data with H Data Recovery Software:

Step 1. Install and run H Data Recovery 

Step 2. Choose "Hard Disk Partition Lost or Crash" from the main menu 

Step 3. Perform a full scan on the drive 

Step 4. View all the recoverable files listed and recover whichever you want.