Windows 8 drive is not accessible after extend using partition wizard 9.

[johnjacke]

Drive E 'main data partition which contains all my important files' becomes RAW (not NTFS) after extending OS Drive C using partition wizard 9 software which finished successfully without errors! (all details available below):

MY HARDDISK WAS RUNNING WITHOUT PROBLEMS BEFORE USING THIS SOFTWARE AND WAS CHECKED FOR ERRORS PERIODICALLY

I installed partition wizard 9 and used it to extend drive C by taking 12 GB of space from my drive E which contain all my data and clicked apply it runs perfectly without problems and all finished successfully !! and it's done without asking me for restart then when I go to my computer found space applied successfully but I can't access drive E and it tells me drive is corrupt and can't be accessed so I checked it with check file system in this software and I found some sort of issue in stage 2 also checked it using chkdsk e: /x /r and gives me same issue and stop continuing check and fix process!!:

stage 2 examining file name linkage
correcting error in index $SDH for file 9
unspecified error occurred (766f6c756d652e63 461)


tried to restart.. windows automatically run into automatic repair for drive E and boot to windows and still drive E not accessible also tried disk management says healthy drive but I found it read drive E as RAW not NTFS!! ... tried to rerun extend again with small space (100MB) and finished successfully and gives me same result as mentioned above.. tried to seek technical support of partition wizard their answer was to try using partition wizard bootable CD and re apply the extend again which I did and extended it by 5 GB again which applied successfully without any problems and when I logged back to windows it gave me same result (space applied to C but E isn't accessible) ..
as a note I am running windows 8.1 64bit on HDD with 2 partitions (C 'OS', E 'full data') and have USB stick always plugged in and was having in that partition couple of mklink folders and I am using ramdisk too. I also recovered some important files .. under support second advice using their recovery software thanks to them.. but it's large partition and can't recover all important files there and wasn't sure all the files will still run or not after the recovery takes place and if I formatted this drive now my chances to recover these files to its original place are little (as it will destroy itself by rewriting itself on same partition if I intended to recover this large partition files to its original place after formatting as I don't have this space available on other partition or HDD also I can't understand what's wrong (as checking drive gives unspecified error and stop continuing and there is no undo process or restore point I can go back to and I can't get it how the extend completed successfully while I can't enter my drive !)... I tried to apply extend back to drive E but gives me message which says there is a known bug in the software which makes overlapping partition if extended back!!. also tried resize it which finished successfully but still drive E not accessible and gave me same result!.

help me if there is a way to solve file name linkage issue or another way to check desk and fix errors without need to format partition and take the risk of losing all my data in it or make this partition read again as NTFS not RAW so I can log into it or.. is it related to master boot record or some sort of error I can't figure out and give me some technical details if u require some logs or want me install any other program! to solve this issue completely

finally I tried active partition recovery software with superscan and fix boot sector and recovery partition (which asked me to delete partition which has problem before recover it which I did using disk management) and applied recovery partition but gave me same result and same issue (and to make sure that it has no negative effect on files after this deletion I tested some files using recovery again and files looks okay) and I also tried some check disk in utilities (like tuneup utilities which not proceed on raw partition!)...

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

What I've been able to find out is that this is a difficult thing to fix.

I've seen a demonstration that EaseUS Data Recovery will retrieve the data from you drive in this condition.
I don't think that there is any risk in trying it...

http://www.easeus.com/resource/raw-external-hard-drive-recovery.htm

Here's a link to the free version.

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm

I confirmed that it installs and runs.

Mike

 

[ussnorway]

You can take space from the back of a drive fine but taking it from the front buggers the mapping and now your E drive will need a format before it works again.

P.s just use the built in windows disc managment tool... that would have given you a message that "doing this will bugger your e drive and asked are you sure?"

 

[johnjacke]

thank you mike and don't understand what ussnorway mean .. I have couple of thoughts too :

I used minitool power data recovery from their support: and chose damaged partition recovery then opened biggest partition (without full scan just opening) and it processed with virtual file system and gave me recovered files (note: partition didn't have letter unlike others and its type was NTFS not RAW in that software) then I filtered to show only normal files and I recovered some important data and they works fine so is there a way to recover all partition in its place without take the risk of formatting it and try to recover data again in it after formatting (which may destroy all recovered files) as I don't have that space.. is there a way to get rid of some data in that inaccessible drive and make a new partition from it to use it for safe recovery or guide the recovery process to overwrite certain files which not that important as files in recovery process for safer recovery and to overcome overwritten data..

I know it's couple of thoughts but who knows.. may be geek around help

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

If I understand you correctly...

Do what it takes to get all you data copied off of the damaged partition.

If you have an NTFS partition that doesn't have a drive letter you can assign a drive letter to it in Disk Management.

As I remember you can just right click on the the partition and select Change Drive Letters and Paths.
Then select a drive letter for it.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/change-add-remove-drive-letter#1TC=windows-7

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/fl/change-drive-letters-windows-8.htm

It would help if you could post a screen capture of your Disk Management window, like this...

Link Removed

Once you have saved all you data to someplace off the hard drive, I'd format it remove all the partitions and start over.
If this hard drive has your Windows install on it then you will have to leave that untouched.

I recently did that with my Disk 1 shown above that used to have Windows 8 on it.
I then moved the data on the Games and Windows 10 Software back to the newly created partition.

Let us know how it's going.

Mike

 

[helpifIcan]

I know this is a dollar short and a day late, but put it in your memory bank.

DO NOT change anything on a disk until all you critical data has been backed up.

Hope you are able to get back the needed data.

 

[Saltgrass]

When I use Partition Wizard, I like to boot into it rather running it from within Windows. But many types of operations should still work.

Partition Wizard has a partition recovery option. If you choose to do that, make sure you select all the partitions which look correct, even if they don't need repairing. The utility will only restore the partitions with check marks.

Any chance of getting a Disk Management picture as Mike is showing and also requests.

 

[johnjacke]

I tried to assign new letter to it and I can see it in explorer but can't access it.
and If I have space for recovery I wouldn't ask for help and it's very very long process I'll leave it for last try..
I want to know is there a way to get rid of some data in that inaccessible drive and make a new partition from it to use it for safe recovery or guide the recovery process to overwrite certain files in this partition which less important than files in recovery process for safer recovery and to overcome the overwritten of data and space problem.
"memory bank.."... what you mean?
I also tried this program from bootable CD and partition recovery.. but what saltgrass mean by "even if they don't need repairing. the utility will only restore the partitions with check marks" .. I see existing and lost/deleted partitions in partition recovery I select previous ones and click finish.. it process with almost same result.

these are the screenshots may be it help:

after using partition wizard 9 pc version first time:

Link Removed

after using partition wizard 9 bootable CD and running surface test to drive E (no errors found) and chkdsk e: /r (which gives me file linkage error).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cek1zd8tg4zg9ia/Capture 2.PNG?dl=0

after trying to extend back Drive E by taking space from Drive C (says this will create overlapping partition and gave me this bug):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xslr542nc53u6ym/capture%203.PNG?dl=0

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

I really can't recommend doing anything to the drive before recovering your data from it.
Doing anything like trying to create an additional partition on it could not only lose your data but make the computer unbootable.

I can speak with experience on this one since just recently I added a partition to one of my hard drives that had Windows 8, my primary operating system on one of the partitions.

Drive 1 in the image above, the partition named now named New Data, is where Windows 8 used to be and where my final install of Windows 10 will go.

For some reason this caused the hard drive to be converted from Simple to Dynamic, (if I had paid attention to the popups I could have avoided this) and at that point it became unbootable.

Fortunately for me, I also had Windows 10 installed on the other hard drive.

I had to boot into Windows 10 and painstakingly copy everything on the drive to an USB external hard drive.

Then I had to format the drive, partition it, and then copy everything back to it again.

Since it is the drive that has all my Windows 10 software on it along with all my games and a lot of graphic files it took forever.

But when I was done I had all my files back, but Windows 8 was gone forever unless I want to start from scratch and reinstall everything.

Since you don't have the space to copy the material to the other hard drive I'd recommend buying an external USB drive and recovering all of you stuff to that.

They are pretty reasonable anymore.

http://www.amazon.com/Passport-Ultr...79948&sr=8-1&keywords=external+usb+hard+drive

I really don't see anyway to make the drive readable in the normal manner since I don't have any idea what's causing it to be unreadable, but I'm afraid that messing with it may make things worse.

Mike

 

[Saltgrass]

I notice the E: partition is a logical drive. Since a logical drive is contained within and Extended partition, did you shrink E: before shrinking the Extended partition? Was such a process indicated when Partition Wizard was shrinking it?

Since I am not familiar with the RAM drive you seem to show, could it be involved in the situation?

You also need free space in a partition to be able to shrink it. You are showing over 90% used. As Mike mentions, moving some data out of the partition may help if you are able. Keep in mind Partition Wizard can copy entire partitions. Since the partition is not accessible right now that may not work. However, it you could copy it that would allow other possibilities if using an external (maybe in a Drive Caddy) or another internal, larger drive.

 

[verachen]

this problem i also see in another forum, answers.microsoft which has a same problem title and comment you can see(here i cannot add a link), maybe it can help you. I use a third free partiton software, aomei partition assistant, to help me extend partition for a long time, recommend to you. Hope my answer can give you a little help.

 

[johnjacke]

so I shouldn't mess with the drive until I make full back up as it's very risky to files there and it may not boot as you mentioned about an issue happened with you before ..
to saltgrass I didn't do anything to that drive before extending and I can remember that I did extend to drive C couple of month ago with older version of partition wizard (I guess it was 8) and it works but now I don't know whats wrong and Iam using AMD RAMDisk free software for caching purposes and with my contact with their support I mentioned this and they didn't have any concern about that.
can you mention what exactly was the title verachen as I found subject like my case on apple forum lead me to TestDisk utility which Iam figuring out how to use it safely.. and about what I did till now I downloaded windows 8.1 and made it bootable from my USB and copied some very important files from E partition to it just in case and I am trying to remember the rest of my important files there.

 

[johnjacke]

this is an update for the issue: I wanted to install new windows on that HDD without losing data in Drive E and I can confirm that installing windows on C is safe for files on E .. and this is what I've done till buying new HDD.
I backed up the most important files to USB flash memory that contains bootable windows just in case and used it to install new windows from scratch by formatting Drive C and system reserved partition only (also deleted them to combine unallocated space found during installation from tests I've done on Drive E before) without making any changes to drive E .. after windows installation finished I installed minitool power data recovery to test files on drive E and see if they are still working fine after windows re installation or not and they look fine.. Iam still trying to find a way to recover partition E without losing data there but at least now I reinstalled windows without affecting data on Drive E.. thank you.

 

[Xmetal]

For NTFS Stuff I always used Minitools's Freeware and it has never had issues. A) I would always recommend backing up important stuff so IF the worst case happens ... "All is not lost"

I would suggest a Linux live distro (say Linux Mint for instance) ... you can put it on an extra USB thumb drive (you DO NOT have to install) and maybe then you can get to acess some of the data you may not have been able to access before.

 

[Xmetal]

They are pretty reasonable anymore.

I have one of these and love it.. its been over a year and a half and it works great.

(Since I am new here, I couldn't repost that Link, but it IS the one I have)