Windows 8 Recovery USB messed up and installed 8.1 and I have lost everything

molloy74 · Apr 5, 2015

I had 8.1 on my laptop but suddenly wouldn't boot "not recognised", online forum said change the "secure boot" and change the boot mode to "CSM boot" would fix it. This didn't work so download a recovery disk as I couldn't even boot my separate recovery drive on the laptop.

I created a bootable USB and was able to bring up the repair mode, but when trying to use any of the options it kept stating that the drive was locked!

I had left the computer for a bit and returning it was loading windows.....only to find that it install 8.1 and I have lost everything

QUESTION IS,

1) Is there anyway of recovering everything on my drive...?

2) Why won’t it recognise my "D" Recovery drive and if I got that to work would it recover my files?

Saltgrass · Apr 5, 2015

On your system, I see two hard drives. One shows as one large partition and has an Install on it, Legacy. When I say clean, I mean all partitions have to be removed prior to converting the drive to MBR, IF that drive was GPT to start with.

The other one is showing offline and unallocated. Be careful with this one. If it had been a UEFI/GPT partitioned drive you may be able to recover prior partitions. Having two drives the same size can cause confusion as to which one is which.

I would suggest you download and create the bootable CD for Partition Wizard. Then boot to that and see if it can see any partitions on the drive.

Disconnecting the other drive would be a very good idea. If Partition Wizard sees partitions, you...

kemical · Apr 5, 2015

You might be lucky and have your stuff stored in a folder marked Windows.old found on the C drive. This page from Microsoft will tell you how to reclaim those files if possible.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-8/restore-files-upgrade-windows-old

Saltgrass · Apr 5, 2015

When you get messages like "Drive is Locked" in your situation it could be you are trying to install one version of an OS over another version.

If 8.1 is running, get us a Disk Management picture. The other install may still be there.

If you had upgraded 8.0 to 8.1, the recovery option may have been disabled.

molloy74 · Apr 5, 2015

Thanks Kemical but the Windows.old is empty.....

molloy74 · Apr 5, 2015

Saltgrass said:
When you get messages like "Drive is Locked" in your situation it could be you are trying to install one version of an OS over another version.

If 8.1 is running, get us a Disk Management picture. The other install may still be there.

If you had upgraded 8.0 to 8.1, the recovery option may have been disabled.

The 8.0 to 8.1 was done months back so not too sure if it was disabled

Saltgrass · Apr 5, 2015

Well, this is one of the things I was wondering about. The new install is configured as Legacy or MBR. In order to change from a UEFI install to an MBR install, the drive has to be cleaned first.

Do you want to go back to UEFI and Secure Boot or leave it the way it is?

molloy74 · Apr 5, 2015

Saltgrass said:
Well, this is one of the things I was wondering about. The new install is configured as Legacy or MBR. In order to change from a UEFI install to an MBR install, the drive has to be cleaned first.

Do you want to go back to UEFI and Secure Boot or leave it the way it is?

I have tried to switch those settings back to see if it would boot up but it wont, prior to the new install it would come up saying media checked failed, no bootable device. this is what lead me to switching them in the first place.
When you mean "cleaned" I gather you are referring to reformat??
Secondly I have two hard drives and the smaller 2nd one was the recovery drive which isn't being recognised now by the laptop! any thoughts on that?

If I have to reformat i want to exhaust all avenues of trying to recover my data and files first.

Saltgrass · Apr 5, 2015

On your system, I see two hard drives. One shows as one large partition and has an Install on it, Legacy. When I say clean, I mean all partitions have to be removed prior to converting the drive to MBR, IF that drive was GPT to start with.

The other one is showing offline and unallocated. Be careful with this one. If it had been a UEFI/GPT partitioned drive you may be able to recover prior partitions. Having two drives the same size can cause confusion as to which one is which.

I would suggest you download and create the bootable CD for Partition Wizard. Then boot to that and see if it can see any partitions on the drive.

Disconnecting the other drive would be a very good idea. If Partition Wizard sees partitions, you may need to set the drive to GPT BEFORE you try to recover those partitions. I do this with Diskpart to make sure no additional partitions are written to the drive. After that is done you can try to recover the partitions, make sure and select the check boxes for all partitions which look normal because if a partition is not select it will not be recovered.

We can check the drive after you recover the partitions, if there are any partitions to recover.

Windows 8 Recovery USB messed up and installed 8.1 and I have lost everything

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