Entire HDD Partition Deleted

trentlad · 26 Jul 2010 at 23:15

Just spoke to a mate who managed to loose all his data on his HDD, but thankfully used GetDataBack and restored all his data.

My question is more about why it happened.

He had a rather large HDD with 4 partitions; C: OS, D: 2nd OS, E: 3rd OS, F: Personal Data. His goal was to delete the three OS partitions and then create two OS partitions using that space. So he'd end up with two OS, one personal data.

He booted up with his Windows 7 disc and was able to delete D: and E: but the option to delete partition C: was greyed out. I'm guessing it might be due to C: being a primary drive but the OS installed onto it was Windows 7.

So he decided to restart his system and try to boot up with his XP disc. When he took a look at his available partitions, to his horror there were no partitions on his HDD. It was all unallocated space.

Why do you think:
(a) Windows 7 couldn't delete partition C:?
(b) Windows XP saw all partitions deleted but Windows 7 did not?

In all fairness I can't stand to use the Windows options to mess about with my partitions. I use Acronis Disk Director instead and it's never let me down.

trentlad · 27 Jul 2010 at 05:52

Anyone?

trentlad · 27 Jul 2010 at 16:58

Can anyone spec me a leather wallet.. or how about if I tell you a story about my next door neighbour borrowing my tools and breaking them.

*shakes head*

bledd · 27 Jul 2010 at 17:35

Dunno, he must have done something.

I use Parted Magic, it's a free bootable linux disc and it has gParted on it

trentlad · 27 Jul 2010 at 17:46

Bledd you are a saviour for this forum you know that. I like you!

You give cool, funny input and actually have informative and helpful responses. You are an underboss which makes you The Gestapo but you haven't been affected by the power.

Keep it up mate and thanks a lot.

Echo · 27 Jul 2010 at 18:25

If he made reference to the drive letters in Windows, they may well have been a different order viewing from Win's boot disc.

Always a good habit to label partitions so you can be doubly sure when making such actions in Windows setup / Ghost etc.

trentlad · 28 Jul 2010 at 04:50

You know that's a pretty good point.

I'm not sure if this is the case in DOS though, I know it's the case in the Windows environment. For instance, if I boot to XP it states the XP OS drive as C: and if I boot to Win 7 it states the Win7 OS drive as C:.

I couldn't agree more about labeling, that always remains and I name the partitions accordingly for this exact reason.

However, this can't be the reason since he booted with a Win7 disc and deleted partitions at that time only and it wouldn't allow him to delete C: and he did not delete F:. When he booted with the XP disc he didn't perform any actions, he simply looked at his partitions only to discover they had all been deleted (the XP boot disc partition manager displayed a HDD with only unallocated space).

trentlad · 28 Jul 2010 at 13:14

I'm guessing the lack of response is down to the lack of information from my part. I'm guessing he hit a button by accident and didn't realise it.

I figured I'd ask just in case there is a known issue or there was a silly mistake in this process but there really doesn't appear to be any if he followed the exact steps I mentioned.

Thanks for your help everyone.