[SOLVED] Previous SSD primary partition unable to access

[kspabs]

I'll explain the series of events that led me here as they may give some insight into how the fix my issue.

I have a a rather new M.2 drive that my Windows 10 install existed on. Yesterday I ran into a BSOD randomly that had the message "Thread device stuck in driver". After restarting, I decided to install a pending Windows update hoping it would fix my issues, but upon restarting for the update, i get a BSOD that now states something along the lines of Winload.exe not being found/corrupt. So I launch my recovry flashdrive and I'm unable to have any results with any of the options (Startup Repair/Uninstall Updates/etc.) in repair. I try rebuilding the boot sector with BCD commands i found on Google but no luck. Then i start getting a BSOD regarding no BCD being able to be found.

I eventually give up and try to just install Windows again on the same drive, but i get an issue about needing to convert from MBR to GPT. So i use DiskGenius to convert and i then install a fresh copy of windows 10 on an empty portion of my M.2 drive.

But i cant seem to get access to the old partition that Windows was installed on. It doesn't have a file system associated with it so I have no clue how to access it now.

 

[rgd1101]

you mean the 866.04GB 100% free partition?

 

[USAFRet]

If you're going to reinstall Windows, do that.
Clean install.

Start up the installer, and delete ALL partitions on that Disk 3.
Start with a blank drive.

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

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And have only that one physical drive connected when you do this.

 

[kspabs]

you mean the 866.04GB 100% free partition?

Yea.. that where my data was (either that or Partition 6). I'm not really sure what happened here... I never wiped the data on the drive but can't seem to find it anywhere. In addition to that, Disk 3 is a 2TB NVME M.2. but Disk Manager is stating its 2.7 TB.

I'm not knowledgeable on this stuff to really understand what is going on here.

 

[rgd1101]

you did use DiskGenius. if you don't need the data. like USAFRet said do a fresh install and delete all partitions.

 

[USAFRet]

In addition to that, Disk 3 is a 2TB NVME M.2. but Disk Manager is stating its 2.7 TB.

Unless Storage Spaces are involved, it can't do that.

 

[kspabs]

So I already got a fresh install on the drive in question after using Disk Genius to convert it to GPT. I installed it on an empty sector of the drive. I'm just trying to recover the data that got locked up from my previous windows installation if at all possible. I dont understand how things got so lopsided on my drive from installing a Windows update, but thats not important. I dont believe this is due to a bad drive so I'm curious where this data magically disappeared to?

Also why is it showing a 914GB NTFS partition, a 866 GB free partition and a 931 GB partition all on a 2TB drive?
I'm also curious to know which other partitions on this drive i can delete because It looks like a mess now. I have a 529 MB Recovery partition, a 100mb System EFI partition, a random 8GB primary partition with drive letter E?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Check storage spaces, post screenshot.
Either you have added your SSD to storage spaces and have combined multiple drives together or
Disk Genius has screwed something up and now drive geometry is being displayed incorrectly.

And converting drive with data on it (without backup) from MBR to GPT with 3rd party tool is not the smartest thing to do. I bet it warned you to make a backup first.

 

[kspabs]

converting drive with data on it (without backup) from MBR to GPT with 3rd party tool is not the smartest thing to do. I bet it warned you to make a backup first.

Yea unfortunately I was pretty much out of options. I don't have a spare drive to back up to and I needed to access my PC as quickly as possible to get some files to a client. Lesson learned there.

I initially tried doing the same with GPARTED but it warned me it would wipe my data. I don't recall DiskGenius providing any sort of warning as far as wiping data goes. And i figured it would be harmless since I initially tried using the build in MBR2GPT through WindowsRE CMD prompt, but I had issues doing so.

As far as storage spaces go, I don't have any. In fact, wasn't even aware of this as a feature. Did you mean something else by this other than Windows Storage Spaces?

 

[USAFRet]

A physical 2TB drive (1.81TB actual) cannot display as 2.7TB without some software weirdness going on.

And any patitioning tool that does not warn you before you hit the Go button is irresponsible.
Turning on your PC containing client data without a known good backup is also irresponsible.
In fact, turning the system on at all...

 

[kspabs]

A physical 2TB drive (1.81TB actual) cannot display as 2.7TB without some software weirdness going on.

And any patitioning tool that does not warn you before you hit the Go button is irresponsible.
Turning on your PC containing client data without a known good backup is also irresponsible.
In fact, turning the system on at all...

Just to be clear, I have my client data backed up on a 2TB HDD, but I do have less important data (that I could afford to lose, but would like to avoid that) on the partition that I lost. I just don't have 800 GB free to copy the old windows partition that I have lost which is why I didn't just use software to copy my broken partition to a backup and wipe the whole drive and start fresh.

So at this point, what do you recommend I do? I am still trying to understand how this all transpired from a Windows update and cant wrap my head around the idea that my PC just sent my 800gb of data into an abyss. At this point, I've secured all my data that I couldn't afford to lose and it's been backed up. I'm just curious if I can restore this partition that seemingly disappeared so I can snag some documents and data that would be inconvenient to lose.

 

[USAFRet]

Just to be clear, I have my client data backed up on a 2TB HDD, but I do have less important data (that I could afford to lose, but would like to avoid that) on the partition that I lost. I just don't have 800 GB free to copy the old windows partition that I have lost which is why I didn't just use software to copy my broken partition to a backup and wipe the whole drive and start fresh.

So at this point, what do you recommend I do? I am still trying to understand how this all transpired from a Windows update and cant wrap my head around the idea that my PC just sent my 800gb of data into an abyss. At this point, I've secured all my data that I couldn't afford to lose and it's been backed up. I'm just curious if I can restore this partition that seemingly disappeared so I can snag some documents and data that would be inconvenient to lose.

I wouldn't proceed without a full drive backup, of all drives. Just to be able to recover completely.
Just in case.

But....
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except Disk 3.
Power up.

What happens?
If it boots properly with NO error messages, post a screencap of that Disk Management window.

 

[kspabs]

This is what I'm looking at with only that drive connected. Still reporting 2.7TB.

 

[USAFRet]

The 866.04GB and 931.57GB partitions...
What options are displayed if you right click on those?
Don't do anything, just list the options in the context menu.

Also, make/model of that physical drive.

 

[kspabs]

Partition 1-2 only have a context menu option of Help
And 5-6 can: Delete Volume or Help

It is a HP EX950 2TB

 

[USAFRet]

Partition 1-2 only have a context menu option of Help
And 5-6 can: Delete Volume or Help

It is a HP EX950 2TB

Given that one of those 2 contains some data you'd like to retrieve, Delete is a rather one way street.

Again, a full drive backup of that, just in case.

 

[kspabs]

Ok so I'll back this drive up.. was going to get a Seagate Passport in the next week or so anyway.

How do i proceed from there to try and recover the missing data? I havent had any luck finding it with Testdisk or EaseUS Partition Master trial as far as the data goes.

 

[USAFRet]

The deleting of one or the other of those partitions is to try to determine HOW a 2TB drive presents itself as 2.7TB.

Create an actual full drive backup clone of that thing.
If it looks exactly the same, do that deletion on the backup. See what happens.

 

[kspabs]

Alright thank you very much for the assistance. I'll get back to you once I try that.

 

[kspabs]

The deleting of one or the other of those partitions is to try to determine HOW a 2TB drive presents itself as 2.7TB.

Create an actual full drive backup clone of that thing.
If it looks exactly the same, do that deletion on the backup. See what happens.

Ok so i have a 4TB backup external drive. I'm using Macrium to make a backup and running into some issues that i believe are a result of Windows recognizing the drive as 2.7 TB (would like to note that my BIOS accurate identifies the size of this drive.)

 

[USAFRet]

From that image, I'm not seeing "2.7TB" in the Source drive.
Your Disk Management, however...

I don't know how it got this way.

But if it were my system:
I'd clone the C partition and relevant boot partition to a different drive. Only those.
Verify it boots up from that.
Then, copy any and all 'data' in the other partitions to some other space. Regular copy/paste, not Macrium.

Then...wipe this drive completely, and start over.

 

[kspabs]

Yea its looking like that is my best option. If i had made a knowingly made a mistake to get it to this point I would have accepted defeat a lot longer ago, but since this whole issue arose without me doing anything wreckless I've been hoping I could retrieve my data as I know I didn't do anything to screw it up myself.

Thanks for all the help, could i ask one more question of you? Which partitions (besides the primary Windows boot partition) do I need to keep? I'm aware there is the 520mb Recovery partition, but is there anything else I should keep? I believe that 100MB partition occurred in WinRe from following a guide on recreating a BCD boot partition or whatever. Besides that, not sure what else is important.

 

[USAFRet]

Its hard to say, because your Macrium window does not line up with your Disk Management window.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Macrium still shows wrong info.
While drive capacity is shown correct - 1.8TB, when you add sizes of all partitions you still get 2.7TB.

 

[kspabs]

I've gone ahead and done as you've suggested and my drive size is back to 2TB as it should be. Thanks again for all the help, I'm now running a backup of my OS to avoid this in the future as well as an additional backup of my secondary drives with important files.