BleepingComputer.com: Hard Drive Partition has Disappeared

Hi

I have a Acer Laptop 6930 G and my hard drive is partitioned into C: and D: drives when I switched on my computer last night I noticed D: drive had disappeared. Tried to do a system restore but couldn't as said D: drive could not be found. C: drive is where windows/programs is etc. D: drive was for data but as this laptop is only a month old that wasn't much on there and what was was on there has been backed up so don't need the data rescuing just need D: drive back.

I was updating Acer Arcade deluxe and I think this caused the problem.

If I go into Data management it looks like this: (also attached print screen)

Volume Layout Type File System Status Capacity Free Space %Free Fault Tolerance Overhead

Simple Basic Healthy (Recovery Partition) 12.00 GB 12.00 GB 100% No 0%
Simple Basic Healthy (OEM Partition) 106.90 GB 106.90 GB 100% No 0%
Simple Basic Healthy (OEM Partition) 3.54 GB 3.54 GB 100% No 0%
Acer (C:) Simple Basic NTFS Healthy (System, Boot, etc) 110.44 GB 54.11 GB 49% No 0%


So my hard drive seems to be partitioned into 4 and its the second one down that used to be D: drive. But when I right click the volume just help comes up no other options.

At the bottom off the screen the 106.90 GB drive has blue associated bar (Primary Partition)

I thought I could just reasign drive D: again but how do I do this if when I right click no options come up.

I also installed Windows 7 on this computer last week (upgrade) but drive D: only disappeared yesterday after trying to fix problems with Acer Arcade.

Is there a simple way to fix this? or as laptop is only a month old and all data is backed is it best to restore back to factory settings and reinstall windows 7 again?

Thank you for any help.

Cath

Couple of questions:

What O/S came with the laptop? I guess I don't understand <<I also installed Windows 7 on this computer last week (upgrade)>>

If Vista was the original O/S...did you just install Win 7 over Vista?

If XP was the original O/S, you would not have been able to install Win 7 on top of it...you would have had to install Win 7 on a different partition.

If you installed Win 7 over Vista...what's the point of those Acer partitions? Those partitions would (I think) only serve a purpose if the original O/S was on the system.

Have you read and understood...the Acer website data on updating to Windows 7?

http://www.acer.com/windows7/eng/

See first two threads listed at Google Search

From the Disk Management data you posted...it appears that one 1 of those 4 partitions has anything on it. That could mean file system problems or hard drive problems...or you wiped out those partitions somehow.

I can't tell from what you have posted thus far, I have no familiarity with Acer laptops.

Louis

Hi

Thanks for replying

The laptop came with Windows Vista. I upgraded to windows 7 and went for the upgrade option (not custom) so all my files were kept.

I didn't look at Data management beforehand installing windows 7 so not sure how my hard drive was partitioned then. Just know in my computer it showed 2 hard drives C: D:.

Until yesterday D: had about 20 gb off data (all backed up so not bothered now its gone) but as said switched on computer yesterday evening and noticed D: drive had gone with the data and don't know how I can get this partition back.

I think Acer has a hidden partition for system restore so thats one off the partitions. But the partition Simple Basic Healthy (OEM Partition) 106.90 GB 106.90 GB 100% No 0% is what was my D: drive so how do I get this back.

Or at this moment I'm think restoring computer back to factory settings (have restore discs) which will mean have vista back. Then back up files for transfer and do a clean windows 7 install. Which maybe I should have done in first place. But I don't think installing windows 7 caused the problem but updating Acer Arcade deluxe.

This may sound daft but if I installed laptop back to factory setting C: and D: drives would come back?

Thanks for anymore help.

This post has been edited by Caway: 15 February 2010 - 12:31 PM

I'm not an IT professional or tech of any sort...so, for me, any Acer system is unlike anything that I've ever owned/used.

The only things which I know will make data or partitions disappear...are either file system or hard drive problems.

If I had such happen, I would promptly use data recovery software...to attempt to see such files/partitions. If the data recovery software can see files, it can probably then reclaim such, in accordance with the directions for using the selected data recovery program.

Since I'm not sure what happened to your partition...I'd run the correct respective hard drive diagnostic on it...after I had convinced myself that I could/could not recover data from the "missing" partition.

I've never had to use OEM boxmaker (Acer, Dell, etc.) recovery/restore devices (partitions/discs) so I can't tell the results to be expected from such.

Louis

Same dilemma as you long ago.
Find the answer through this topic, thank you for the people who kindhearted helped us.