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Two inaccessible partitions - troubleshooting needed

D

Disk

n00b
Joined
Sep 28, 2012
Messages
4
Hi,

I have replaced my 500GB HDD with a 120GB SSD. Given that the SSD has less storage, I wanted to use my HDD in an ultrabay HDD-adapter enclosure as a second hard drive in my ThinkPad T61. However, the ultrabay HDD-adapter enclosure seems faulty. Consequently, I have put the HDD into an external USB enclosure just to find out that I can only access two of my three partitions on that HDD. All three partitions are shown as 'local disks'. What has gone wrong. Please help me regaining access to the data on those two inaccessible partitions. Many thanks in advance for your help.
 
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I don't know about your specific situation, but if you want to get back partitions that are corrupted, have mysteriously disappeared and so on, there is nothing better than Testdisk (open source/free).

There are native versions available for use inside all major OSs (including Windows).
 
Thank you for the hint.

I have managed to get access with the free but not open source MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition 7.6.1. I used 'Check File System' and then 'Check & fix detected errors.' It did the trick for me. I am so relieved.

I give TestDisk a try next time when need should arise.
 
The third partition that was and is still accessible is shown under Windows as 'Local Disk' but its actual name is 'Media' as displayed when using MiniTool Partition Wizard to access it. This in itself is not a big problem but I wanted to download a file onto it. However, only two of a fair number of folders where displayed under the 'save as' window. Furthermore, when I wanted to save the file Firefox hang up. The same happened when I tried to access the partition with Windows Explorer. I even could not end the not responding programs via Task Manager. I therefore had to force a restart of my PC. When I check the file system the MiniTool PW returns no errors. So where is the error and what's causing it? Any ideas?
 
As noted above, Testdisk. Lots of instruction pages there if command windows scare you (you don't need to type anything in, its a "GUI/command" program). Also a fine forum there that the author of the program frequents if you have specific questions the instructions don't cover.

One side tip: always a good idea to assign your own names to partitions (through Explorer, Disk Management or otherwise), instead of letting Windows use default names ("Local Disk", etc.). Makes recovery with tools like Testdisk or what you tried a lot easier.

One other thing. A particular hard drive can have only have a maximum of four "primary" partitions seen in Windows (using the standard MBR-based partition table scheme on drives 2TB in size & smaller). Of which only one can be 'active' (meaning bootable) on the drive at any one time. If you want more than four partitions on a single drive, beyond the fourth you'll need to create an extended partition containing logical drive(s) (modern Windows does this by default in Disk Management). Your "ultrabay" enclosure may (or may not) be having issues with your current partition setup.
 
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