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Windows partition gone

I have a Windows XP box that had a partition on a 1TB drive with a bunch of data on it. All of a sudden the partition is gone. Not sure what happened, but I just tossed the drive into a Window 7 box with Active Partition Recovery on it, but it's the demo version, so I can't recove the partition. Does anyone know of good free software to recover a missing partition? One thing to note... I can see the drive as a local drive, but it has no drive letter assigned to it and will not let me do so as Windows 7 thinks it doesn't have a partition. I am guessing the MBR got damaged somehow, but can't fix that without a drive letter.

HainKurt

maybe not...

did you try this

•First right click on "my computer", select manage then disk management.
•Now right click on the drive (in the lower right quadrant window) and select "import volume" (or something similar to that). This will add an existing drive to the stack.

chakko

TestDisk is a good free one.

here is a page with examples how to use it.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

nobus

these are the best i know :
      http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm      pc Inspector -FREE -
      http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download/standard            FREE - Recuva
http://www.stellarinfo.com/                              Stellar
http://www.runtime.org/                              GetDataBack
http://www.ontrack.com/                              Ontrack

Syed Ali

Whats the of disk appearing once tossed in windows 7?
Is it showing used space and free space?
Is it showing the occupied space because of data?

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Syed Ali

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noxcho

Download and install trial version: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/brh/
Then run it - select Full Scale Mode - there right click on your empty space - Recover Lost Partitions.
When found recover it.

johnb6767

I recently worked through a similar process, but the drive was quick formatted.....

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/27300364/Unformat-a-drive.html

Bottom line, @Active Partition Recovery worked wonders. Only tool that actually found and restored the partition table.....

http://www.partition-recovery.com/

Greg27

ASKER

Great solution. It worked like a charm and was free. Thanks for the help.