With the fact that the hard disk partitions into which it was partitioned during the installation of the operating system or after that, it’s not known why they disappear, computer users often encounter it. The reasons for the fact that some section of the hard drive disappeared, seemingly for no reason, can be counted quite a lot. This may be damage to the device itself, and its overheating, and failures in the operating system, and the impact of viruses, and God knows what. Some, not understanding the problem, immediately begin to frantically reinstall the entire system and partition the hard drive again. But this only leads to the fact that, for example, previously stored important information will be deleted on a logical drive. In order not to use such cardinal methods, let's see what can be done in such a situation with the least loss.
The partition of the hard drive disappeared at system startup: how to restore the boot by the simplest method?
First, a few words about the most unpleasant situation when problems are observed with the system partition.
For example, you turn on the computer, it seems that it starts, but suddenly a message appears on the black screen stating that the hard drive is not detected when loading, or a notification that the installed operating system was not found. Do not panic. It is entirely possible that such a situation is connected only with the fact that contacts have moved somewhere. Just check the tightness of the cable and power cables (of course, when the computer is turned off).
If everything is in order with this, you may have damaged important system components that are responsible for starting Windows.
In this case, you will need to boot from removable media such as LiveCD and first of all call the command line (Shift + F10) and perform their check (sfc / scannow). As a rule, in most cases, after recovering system files, the system will be determined without problems. But this does not always happen.
If this does not work, you can try to use the Bootrec.exe tool command, after which you enter an additional attribute “/ FixMBR” after a space, and then re-enter the main command - “/ FixBoot” (both attributes are entered without quotes). If this does not help, you can completely rewrite the bootloader by adding the attribute “RebuildBCD” to the main command (again, without quotes). If for some reason this does not produce the desired result, use the boot version of the TestDisk utility, which can be used as a diagnostic and recovery tool for the system partition.
Hard Disk Partition Missing in Windows 10: Reassigning Letters
But, as practice shows, most often the appearance of such situations is connected not with the systemic, but with the logical partition. Suppose that the partition of the hard disk that was displayed under the letter D in the system disappeared. All devices in the "Explorer" are visible, but this section is not. Sometimes you may encounter situations when your friends could make fun of you by setting the hidden attribute for this section (an empty area will be shown in the "Explorer"), which you need to remove.
It can also be assumed that the logical partition of the hard drive disappeared for another reason, and at the moment the system simply does not see it under the desired letter occupied by another device.
To display it, you need to call the disk management section (diskmgmt.msc), on the section through RMB, select the path or letter change point, and then assign it the desired character from the list.
Note: keep in mind that if you have only two partitions on the disk, you should not use the Latin letters A, B, E, F, etc. It is believed that the first two are reserved for floppy disks, the rest for disk drives and USB drives. Select letter D and save the changes. If this does not work, assign, for example, the letter Z.
What should I do if an unallocated area appears instead of a logical partition?
The situation is worse when the hard disk partition is gone and an unallocated area appears instead. This is very common. In this case, if important user files were not saved in the logical section, in the same disk management section through RMB, you can choose to create a simple volume, and then assign it a new letter and perform full formatting.
The technique of creating a new section and combining with the missing
But what if the important information was saved in the disappeared section? Of course, you can try to restore it using the unique R-Studio program (and even after formatting the partition), but there is a simpler solution.
In such a situation, it’s better to turn to programs like AOMEI Partition Assistant or a similar utility from Acronis and “pinch” a small piece (even a few megabytes) from the system partition, create a simple volume, format it in NTFS, and combine with the problem partition when all operations are completed .
Partition recovery of MBR and GPT by third-party utilities
Some programs are designed to recover lost partitions. So, for example, you can perform similar actions with the PC hard drive in the same Disk Director application, using the built-in Recovery Expert tool, in which, following the “Wizard” prompts, you need to select the manual recovery mode and set a full search.
The program itself will perform all necessary actions, and upon completion, the logical volume with all the information on it will be brought into a fully operational state.
Of particular note is the situation where the partition of the GPT hard drive is missing. What is this section? In fact, this is a disk or volume of more than 2 TB, for which the GPT style is installed instead of MBR.
To restore such partitions, the DMDE program is best suited, in which you need to select a hard disk with a missing partition, select it after scanning, press the insert button, and then select the GPT (GUID) partition in the menu, which will be offered to be done automatically, and upon completion with confirmation of operations completely reboot the system.
What could be more?
Finally, it is worth paying attention to the possible presence of various viruses on the computer. It is recommended to detect them with the subsequent neutralization or removal either using portable scanners like KVRT, or using antiviruses with a bootloader, using which you can boot from removable media before the operating system starts, like Kaspersky Rescue Disk.