The few hundred bytes at the top of your drive describe the way you have your drive set up. If you damage these then the operating system will report that your disk is empty, although nothing has been removed from your disk. Your disk is simply missing its "map".
Both Windows & macOS respond to an unreadable partition table by offering to fix it. And both fixes involve writing a new one over the old. All of your data is intact behind these few hundred bytes until something replaces them.
Disproportionate consequences for such a small area, which is exactly why this recovers so well.
At the beginning of every drive there is a short structure describing how the space is divided; where each volume starts/ends, how large it is and what file system it has. That is all. On a 4TB disk it occupies only a fraction of a single sector, and everything else on the drive is your data.
Remove or destroy that structure, and the operating system will have no clue that there is something there. It will report the drive as RAW, unallocated, or as being the proper size with nothing on it — which to its knowledge is the truth. None of your data was displaced. Your map is gone; not your land.
Different messages, depending upon the type of operating system you are using and what part of the file structure has gone missing.
The recovery process takes advantage of the fact that every file system advertises itself.
Every file system announces the existence of its own signature in the beginning of the volume. All these file systems write some sort of recognisable signatures. For example, NTFS, exFAT, FAT32, APFS, HFS+ and ext all have distinct boot sectors or superblocks. Scanning the disk image looking for those marker signs identifies exactly where each volume starts, even if there is no record of that in the table that has been lost.
Then, the volume size will be found from the file system's own records, a correct partition table for the image will then be reconstructed, and the volume will mount. If the boot sector itself is damaged, nearly all file systems keep a duplicate somewhere else on the volume — NTFS keeps a duplicate at the end of the volume; ext keeps a duplicate in the super-blocks — and the volume will be recreated using that duplicate instead. And everything occurs on an image of your original, therefore, no changes will occur to your original.
This is a logical error on good hardware. This is the least expensive type of error.
One drive can be recovered from £300 + VAT. The price is fixed after a free 48-hour diagnostic. In addition, on most jobs you won't be charged anything if it doesn't succeed. When drives are operating well physically, some of the fastest recovery timeframes we encounter are when only a single drive needs to be recovered — often a couple of days rather than a week.
Let us know if your drive is noisy or is failing. The partitioning work remains the same, but the imaging process comes first and generally takes longer. Therefore, you should be aware of this fact prior to being surprised by the timeframe.
Please send us your device along with a brief description of what happened. This diagnostic process has no cost and the price for the next phase of service will be fixed in writing prior to commencing work.
This is the only step that requires input from you and nothing else can happen until the device is on our bench. Package your item properly and include all the information we require about you and your item(s), then ship them to us. Then comes a no-cost diagnostic, followed by a written quote.
Posting it? Use a tracked and insured service. The value of what is on the drive far exceeds the cost of postage. Bringing it in? Weekdays from 9am to 5:30pm, and it still needs packing as described above for the journey.
Tell us about the item in question, tell us how it has been behaving lately, and let us know if there is anything you have done as far as troubleshooting goes so that our engineers may provide a realistic estimate of success and a probable cost range prior to sending your items off.
We’ll be in touch shortly. If it’s urgent, call 0161 871 0788.
The types of things people usually ask when they have lost or are unable to find their missing partition.
Almost certainly not. When a drive is reported as "unallocated," that simply indicates you have lost access to the volume's location information in the partition table which describes the locations of all the volumes. This is just a few hundred bytes of space located at the beginning of every disk. All other data is still intact.
Absolutely not, and that is the single most critical item to note on this page. The suggestion by Windows to "format" the disk means that Windows cannot see the structure that defines the partition(s) on your disk — formatting creates a brand-new, empty partition table over the top of whatever existed before, which is exactly what a recovery would rebuild from.
A failed resize operation or partitioning operation, an interrupted dual-boot installation, a sudden loss of power while performing a write operation at the start of the disk, virus/malware infection, or incorrect placement of write operations by a controller. Bad sectors that develop directly over the top of the original partition table will also do it.
Usually, yes. A rebuilt volume will have its original files, folder structures and file system — whereas carving only returns files with no names or structure.
It's slightly different. RAW means the partition was found but the file system inside cannot be identified. It usually means that you have experienced some sort of boot sector damage. Most file systems contain an additional copy of the boot sector somewhere else, therefore the volume can often be rebuilt based upon the backup.
From £300 + VAT for a single drive, fixed after a free 48-hour diagnostic, with nothing to pay on most jobs if it fails. On healthy hardware, lost partition recovery is among the quicker types of data recovery.
We offer a free diagnostic. On most jobs, if we are unable to complete it, you won't be charged anything. Lost partition recovery is available from our company on all drives, sticks or cards — every file back intact. Start your recovery today!