Solved External disk : diskpart shows disk but no drive letter

vdurieu

New Member
Messages
4
Hello

I have a HDD 750G with 2 partitions NTFS with data.
used externally in a USB3 box connected to my windows 8.1 asus laptop.

No idea what I do, I always use 'eject' before disconnecting this HDD, but now I see that with diskpart :

[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif]DISKPART> list disk[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif]
[/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif] Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif] -------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif] Disk 0 Online 238 GB 1024 KB *[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif] Disk 1 Online 22 GB 0 B *[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif]* Disk 2 Online 698 GB 611 GB[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif]
[/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif]DISKPART> list volume[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif]
[/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif] Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif] ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif] Volume 0 E DVD-ROM 0 B No Media[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif] Volume 1 C OS NTFS Partition 49 GB Healthy Boot[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif] Volume 2 D Data NTFS Partition 167 GB Healthy[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif] Volume 3 SYSTEM FAT32 Partition 100 MB Healthy System[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif] Volume 4 Recovery NTFS Partition 900 MB Healthy Hidden[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif] Volume 5 Restore NTFS Partition 20 GB Healthy Hidden[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif]
[/FONT]so disk 2 is there, but no volume, no partition, no drive letter. just a 'bip' sound when I connect the disk to usb port.

i try with paragon disk manager or aomei partition assistant, but can't assign a drive letter (option greyed)
[FONT=Courier New, courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif]how can I do to get 2 drive letters & access my datas ?

thanks for help



[/FONT]
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8.1
What does Win8 Disk Management show for that drive? If it shows as "raw" in the list, and it won't let you assign a drive letter, it could be that the drive has failed.
 

My Computer

try in diskpart
select disk 2
assign

See if that gives a drive letter to one of the partitions on the drive, if not, afraid you got an error in the mbr or gpt tables. Or as said, drive has failed..............
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8.1 pro
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Microsoft Surface Pro 1
    CPU
    Intel I5
    Motherboard
    Microsoft
    Memory
    4 gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel
    Mouse
    Cheap Bluetooth 5 button
    Browser
    IE 11
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
thanks for help, but still not solved (diskpart - assign don't assign a letter).
in attach the disk management screenshot (disk 3 here)
dsk.jpg
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8.1
So basically, it won't let you assign a letter to the 88GB OEM partition on disk #3?

What you could try is using the Minitool Partition Wizard Free Edition to do a Check on that partition. That will force a CHKDSK to be run to see if the filesystem is corrupted.

After that, you should be able to assign a drive letter.
 

My Computer

I try ESAUS partition recovery & active partition recovery, but can't get my data back
a delete partion / create partition solve the issue
Thanks for help
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8.1
Deleting and recreating partitions does not actually erase the files and folders, it just recreates the partition table.

You might still be able to recover some of the files and folders using "recuva".
 

My Computer

I don't understand how you managed to end up with a 'logical drive' instead of a primary partition, either mbr or gpt. sounds like you have a boot record error, the drive type got changed somehow. If you re-initialize the drive you'll lose any info on it. I used to use aefdisk32 on xp to manipulate the partition type descriptor on computers with virus changed mbr's. I've never had to change one with diskpart, but deleting and re-creating a partiton WILL remove formatting, and files WILL be lost from the directory structure. A logical drive was only used with MBR partition structure when more than 4 partitions were needed. It isn't used in GPT, as the partition table isn't limited to 4 partitions.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8.1 pro
    Computer type
    Tablet
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Microsoft Surface Pro 1
    CPU
    Intel I5
    Motherboard
    Microsoft
    Memory
    4 gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel
    Mouse
    Cheap Bluetooth 5 button
    Browser
    IE 11
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
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