[SOLVED] 3 x Hard Drives suddenly unallocated: How to recover their data ?

[origamiboy2]

So about a month ago I switched out my motherboard from a Gigabyte B450 Aorus Pro to an Asus x570 TUF. This switch caused 3 of my drives to become unallocated, which I was pissed off about, but I did successfully recover my important files using EaseUS. However today I uninstalled RGB Fusion 2.0: the thing that controls RGB for gigabyte motherboards, while also installing ASUS Armory Crate (which controls RGB for my motherboard). This immediately caused 3 of my 5 drives to become unallocated (one 4tb mechanical HDD, 1tb ssd, 500gb mechanical hdd in a hot swap bay). It's literally the exact same thing that happened before, but this time I would like to solve it without having to format and recover data (if possible). I suspect that whatever tells the drive that it's NTFS or exFAT or whatever just became corrupted, and all my data should be there just fine. I would just like to be able to access it.

Here are the important specs:
-ASUS X570 TUF
-RTX 2070
-GT 1030
-Kingston M.2 as a boot drive (still fine)
-2x 4tb I pulled from an old external drive (one is fine, the other is not)
-1tb Kingston SSD (unallocated)
-old 500gb i pulled from an older computer (unallocated)

I installed DMDE to my C drive and it shows the file system type and the name of the partition that I had on it before it became unallocated, i can provide screenshots if needed but I'm posting this from a different computer. Thanks in advance

 

[rgd1101]

You mean after the first time, you still don't backup data?

 

[origamiboy2]

You mean after the first time, you still don't backup data?

No, because 1) i don't know how to back up 10+tbs without paying exorbitant amounts of money, and 2) I thought it was a one off thing that wouldn't happen again, especially because the drives were fine once reformated, and chkdsk didn't show any errors or bad sectors. My data was there, just inaccessible.

If you have a solution to my problem, or a suggestion on how to back up a massive amount of data like that, by all means let me know.

 

[rgd1101]

If you have a solution to my problem, or a suggestion on how to back up a massive amount of data like that, by all means let me know.

nas storage. mininum is backup important data

 

[USAFRet]

No, because 1) i don't know how to back up 10+tbs without paying exorbitant amounts of money, and 2) I thought it was a one off thing that wouldn't happen again, especially because the drives were fine once reformated, and chkdsk didn't show any errors or bad sectors. My data was there, just inaccessible.

If you have a solution to my problem, or a suggestion on how to back up a massive amount of data like that, by all means let me know.

A couple of 8TB external drives.
$125 ea.
Free software. All automated.


This is my procedure, to my NAS.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

Can easily be reduced down to an external drive or two.

Data should never be at the mercy of a single physical drive.

 

[origamiboy2]

A couple of 8TB external drives.
$125 ea.
Free software. All automated.


This is my procedure, to my NAS.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

Can easily be reduced down to an external drive or two.

Data should never be at the mercy of a single physical drive.

It's a 1tb ssd, a 4tb hdd, and a 500gb hdd that unallocated. My C drive is fine, my other 4tb is fine. No data there is "at the mercy of a single drive". Now do you have any advice to help?

I will look into backups though

 

[Grobe]

Well - it it was me, I would have done this

• Used some software - eg. Gparted (don't touch anything yet) to see if there exist valid partitions.
• If there is valid partitions - then I'd use a DD command from within a Linux Live session to make a partition image on a local disk (can be an external usb drive).
• Use ntfsfix command on the image file.
• Then try to mount - like this.

There is also a rescue tool built in Gparted, but I haven't tried to use that.

 

[fzabkar]

Another victim of AMD Ryzen. :-( Well, at least that appears to be the common factor.

DMDE should be able to fix the problem with a few clicks, provided that you haven't messed with the drives.

Screenshots would help, but normally you would r-click the desired partition and select "Insert the partition (undelete)". Then Write -> Apply Changes and reboot to allow the OS to redetect the drives.

You may need to "Set GPT+MBR Signatures (GPT On)", depending on the damage.

The whole procedure should only take a few minutes. There is no need for a full scan.

I should add that these procedures only target sectors 0, 1 and 2. They do not touch your data.

 

[USAFRet]

It's a 1tb ssd, a 4tb hdd, and a 500gb hdd that unallocated. My C drive is fine, my other 4tb is fine. No data there is "at the mercy of a single drive". Now do you have any advice to help?

I will look into backups though

You asked:
"or a suggestion on how to back up a massive amount of data like that, by all means let me know. "

I answered.

 

[origamiboy2]

Well - it it was me, I would have done this

• Used some software - eg. Gparted (don't touch anything yet) to see if there exist valid partitions.
• If there is valid partitions - then I'd use a DD command from within a Linux Live session to make a partition image on a local disk (can be an external usb drive).
• Use ntfsfix command on the image file.
• Then try to mount - like this.

There is also a rescue tool built in Gparted, but I haven't tried to use that.

Alright thanks, i'll try this process

 

[origamiboy2]

Another victim of AMD Ryzen. :-( Well, at least that appears to be the common factor.

DMDE should be able to fix the problem with a few clicks, provided that you haven't messed with the drives.

Screenshots would help, but normally you would r-click the desired partition and select "Insert the partition (undelete)". Then Write -> Apply Changes and reboot to allow the OS to redetect the drives.

You may need to "Set GPT+MBR Signatures (GPT On)", depending on the damage.

The whole procedure should only take a few minutes. There is no need for a full scan.

I should add that these procedures only target sectors 0, 1 and 2. They do not touch your data.

This worked first try, no if ands or buts. Thank you so much! I'll be looking into backing up all my stuff now...

 

[fzabkar]

Oops, that should have been "Disk -> Apply Changes".

If the problem happens again, the solution may involve replacing the SATA driver(s).

 

[fzabkar]

I just saw another AMD-Ryzen-unallocated-HDDs thread.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...-after-changing-the-mb.3672665/#post-22119333

@Darkbreeze made the observation that the OP changed the motherboard without a clean reinstall of Windows. Perhaps that's been the root cause in all these threads.