Windows 8 Partition not detected

Rick Graham · Apr 28, 2013

Any help would be greatly appreciated Here's the scenario...

PC crashed, I get Toshiba splash screen at start up then nothing. With recovery stick I can get tools but cannot use them... I get either missing partition or hard drive locked message. I can get to command prompt though where it appears that the partition containing Windows is not being recognized at all...the size of the partition is not even showing up. This all started when I returned to my PC to find it unresponsive and had to power it off with the power button. PC was working fine for months after upgrading from Windows 7.

Thank you

Saltgrass · Apr 29, 2013

If you can get into the Advanced Options on the Repair my computer page, you might be able to select Restore from Image and during that process, and see a Load Drivers button. If you can, select that button will open an Explorer window. Select Computer and look for the C: partition and right click and select properties. If "Compact Drive" is checked, uncheck it. Perhaps that will free up the partition.

The only other thing I could suggest is to go into the Command Prompt in the same area. Find what partition is showing as the Windows 8 partition, but either a dir command, or open Diskpart and use the lis vol command to see which one it is. Type exit to get out of Diskpart. Then take that volume letter...

Jimbo22 · Apr 29, 2013

Is this a laptop or desktop? Can you get into your BIOS?

kemical · Apr 29, 2013

Rick Graham said:
Any help would be greatly appreciated Here's the scenario...

PC crashed, I get Toshiba splash screen at start up then nothing. With recovery stick I can get tools but cannot use them... I get either missing partition or hard drive locked message. I can get to command prompt though where it appears that the partition containing Windows is not being recognized at all...the size of the partition is not even showing up. This all started when I returned to my PC to find it unresponsive and had to power it off with the power button. PC was working fine for months after upgrading from Windows 7.

Thank you

If you have your Windows 8 install disk then pop into the bios and change the boot order to boot from disk. Go through the steps as if your doing a new installation but on the actual install screen choose 'Repair' instead.
If you don't have a disk then try this link for recovery disks:
Windows 8 recovery disk download

Mitchell_A · Apr 29, 2013

If the hard drive doesn't show up by name within the boot order in the BIOS, it's probably failed.

Saltgrass · Apr 29, 2013

If you can get into the Advanced Options on the Repair my computer page, you might be able to select Restore from Image and during that process, and see a Load Drivers button. If you can, select that button will open an Explorer window. Select Computer and look for the C: partition and right click and select properties. If "Compact Drive" is checked, uncheck it. Perhaps that will free up the partition.

The only other thing I could suggest is to go into the Command Prompt in the same area. Find what partition is showing as the Windows 8 partition, but either a dir command, or open Diskpart and use the lis vol command to see which one it is. Type exit to get out of Diskpart. Then take that volume letter (probably c but not always) and use the following command.

bcdboot c:\Windows

If this command works, it might allow you to boot back into Windows 8 or at least allow you to use the tools to recover the system.

If you can't get into the command prompt using the Advanced Options from the recovery tools, you might be able to do the same thing by using Shift+F10 at the first window after booting into the Recovery scenario.

Windows 8 Partition not detected

Rick Graham

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Saltgrass

Jimbo22

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kemical

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Mitchell_A

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Saltgrass

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