Ever wondered what if your hard drive partition gets deleted? There are several reasons, like accidental deletion, file system corruption, hardware failure, virus and malware attacks, etc. why hard drive partitions usually get lost and deleted. Luckily, recovering lost or deleted partitions on Windows 10 is often possible using proper partition recovery software and manual workarounds. This guide will explore the causes of partition loss and provide you with detailed steps to recover lost or deleted hard drive partitions on Windows 10, ensuring your partitions are not lost forever.
What Causes Partition Loss on Windows?
Before diving into recovery workarounds, it’s important to understand the common reasons for partition loss:
- Accidental Deletion: You might accidentally delete partitions while using disk management tools or partition software. Such instances usually occur while performing operations like resizing, merging, or creating new partitions.
- File System Corruption: The file system, which organizes and manages how data is stored, sometimes gets corrupted due to software errors, improper shutdowns, power failures, etc. and also makes partitions inaccessible.
- Virus or Malware Attacks: Malicious software, like viruses or malware can damage or corrupt the partition table or modify the master boot record (MBR), making partitions inaccessible.
- Improper Shutdowns: Sudden power outages or improper shutdowns can interrupt read/write processes, causing sudden corruption of the partition table or file system and even leading to partition loss.
- Partition Table Damage: The partition table, which stores information about the partitions on a disk, can become damaged because of software issues, virus attacks, or hardware failures, causing partitions to disappear.
Quick Methods to Recover Lost Partitions on Windows 10
In this part of the blog, we will explore various methods to recover lost or deleted hard drive partitions on Windows 10, starting with the easiest method:
Method 01: Recover Lost Partition Using Stellar Data Recovery Professional
Let’s start with the quick approach first. If you need to recover lost or deleted partitions of Windows 10 PC, try using a partition recovery software. Tools like Stellar Data Recovery Professional allow you to recover lost or deleted partitions, irrespective of the reasons how it was lost. The software supports recovery of partitions lost on internal as well as external hard drives.
- The Stellar Data Recovery Professional tool supports the recovery of files of multiple types, such as photos, videos, documents, archives, and many more.
- It can also recover data from multiple storage mediums, including SD cards, USB flash drives, Pen drives, external hard drives, etc.
- The software is compatible with both Windows and Mac devices.
- It recovers data from completely crashed and unbootable devices.
- Allows you to preview recoverable files. 100% safe and secure software to use and recover lost files.
Here’s how to recover lost or deleted hard drive partitions on Windows 10:
Step 1: Download and install the Stellar Data Recovery Professional tool on your affected Windows device. From the Select What to Recover window, choose Everything and click Next.
Step 2: Now, from the Recover From screen, click the “Can’t Find Drive” option and click Scan.
Step 3: After completion of the scanning process, go through the list of lost or deleted partitions that appear on your screen. Select the drive to recover the lost partition and click Search.
Step 4: If the partition is not available in the first scan, click “Extensive Partition Search” to find deleted partitions.
Step 5: From the scan result that appears, preview the recoverable files, choose the files that you need to recover and click Recover to save them at the desired location.
Method 02: Restore the Deleted Partition by Assigning a Drive Letter
Another method that you can try to recover lost or deleted hard drive partitions on Windows 10/11 is by assigning a drive letter. This method best works when the partition is not actually lost or deleted but has become inaccessible due to minor system or software issues. All you have to do is:
- Firstly, press the Windows + R keys and then type diskmgmt.msc in the Run window to launch Disk Management.
- Now, right-click on the partition that you need to assign a drive letter and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.
- Click the Change button from the pop-up window that appears.
- Check the box next to “Assign the following drive letter” and select an appropriate drive letter from the drop-down list. Click OK to conclude the process.
After successful completion of the above steps, check your partition in File Explorer. If you are still facing the same issue, move to the next workaround.
Method 03: Recover Deleted Partition Using CMD
If you are quite familiar with Windows’ in-built Command Prompt (CMD) utility, then you can use it to recover deleted partitions with command line interfaces. Below are the steps to recover lost or deleted hard drive partitions on Windows 10 using CMD, primarily focusing on using the DiskPart and CHKDSK utilities:
- Start by launching the Run prompt, then type diskmgmt.msc in the Run window and press the OK key to launch Disk Management.
- Now, type CMD in your desktop’s search box, right-click Command Prompt, and then select Run as administrator to run it with administrative privileges.
- Type the Diskpart command in the new window that appears and press the Enter key.
- After that, type the following commands one-by-one and press Enter after each command to execute:
- list disk (you will see all the available disks on your screen).
- select disk # (replace # with a disk with lost partitions).
- list volume
- assign letter=# (replace # with an available drive letter).
Preventive Measures to Avoid Partition Loss in Future
To avoid partition loss on your Windows 10 device in future, consider these preventive tips:
- Regular Backups: Maintain regular data backups to an external drive or cloud storage. You can even use Windows built-in tools like File History or Backup and Restore for comprehensive backups.
- Reliable Partition Management: Use reliable and reputable partition management tools to reduce the risk of accidental deletion or corruption.
- System Updates: Keep your device OS and all the installed software applications up to date to minimize the risk of bugs and compatibility issues leading to partition loss.
- Antivirus Protection: Use reliable antivirus software to protect your system from malware or virus attacks that can damage or delete partitions.
Conclusion
Hope, the above methods help you to recover lost or deleted hard drive partitions on Windows 10 devices. Though there are several partition recovery methods, depending on the cause and severity of the partition loss, it is important to apply them immediately. Whether you are using built-in tools or specialized professional data recovery software like Stellar Data Recovery Professional, try to create backup of all important files on your device to an external storage drive or cloud location to help you in future. Moreover, implementing preventive measures will also help you to prevent your data from future partition loss.
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