How to Fix Missing or Invalid Hard Disk Drive Error?

User can divide a physical drive into a number of partitions to store data in structured manner. Dividing the disk into specific size drive helps to avoid confusion and keeps the data organized. Disk drives are of three types- primary, extended and logical. It is not possible to have more than four primary drives. At one point, only one primary drive is active. Primary and extended drives cannot intersect each other. Extended drives are fourth, which subdivided into logical drives.

A partition table indicates how many drives a hard disk has; it holds all the information about the divided drives like their sizes, location, etc. It is 64 bytes long. Each partition table is limited to a maximum of four primary partitions. However, sometimes it happens when this partition table gets affected, and user faces an error message like invalid or missing drive.

Reasons for a missing or invalid Drive:

Virus Attack

This is one of the most common reason for hard drive data loss. There are some viruses, which damaged the partition table of hard disk drive. Virus issues can be avoided by keeping your anti-virus software updated.

Incorrect Shutdown

Abrupt shutdowns, due to power outages, could lead to loss of logical drives or damage to them.

Human Error

Accidental logical drive loss may happen if the user does not have accurate computer knowledge.

Hardware/Software troubles

A defective software installed on your system may leads to drive data loss.

Hardware issues like bad RAM or problems with the hard drive could cause drive errors.

How to Fix this?

You can fix error manually by using the following method:

• Remove all connected external devices.
• Restart your computer, and wait for the BIOS screen to be displayed
• Click on the F8 key, which will take you to the Advanced Boot Options.
• In the advanced options, choose ‘Repair your computer’. You will get Systems Recovery options.
• Click on command prompt and type bootrec/fixmbr
• Wait for process to complete
• If it does not work, you can try to type bootrec/fixboot in the command prompt

If the above steps do not work, then there is a major problem with the disk.

In this situation, you can try any software for recovery. Use a trusted software like Stellar Phoenix Free Data recovery, as a defective software could worsen the problem.

Short Description about Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery – Free Edition

You can retrieve your valuable data like images, files or documents using the Stellar Phoenix Free Data Recovery software. This software is easy to use and available at free of cost, it is a must have product if you are suffering from any kind data loss issue. 

This software has a user-friendly interface and is simple to use. Connect the hard drive to your computer. Install and run Stellar Phoenix Free Data Recovery. It will automatically detect the drive, just select the drive and start the scanning process. After the scan is completed, the recoverable files will be shown in software interface. Select the files that you want to recover and click on the ‘Save’ button to save the files at your desired location.

Note: Stellar Phoenix can help recover upto 1 GB data.

Top 5 Windows Free Data Recovery Software

This article brings you the best data recovery software for Windows which helps to recover your data from the failure hard drives at free of cost. Hard drives may fail due to any reason but getting your data back from that failed hard disk requires high technical skills and efforts, and these can be found in a data recovery software. Data recovery software now becomes the need of the users for easy and smooth recovery.

Below I Have Explained the Most Recommended Software for Windows Data Recovery.  

Recuva: 

I believe you are not surprised when you see the Recuva on the top in the software recommendation list. This software has a number of amazing features which influence to keep this tool on the top. Let me tell you its features to know the highlights of this software and these are:

• Fast Scanning Process
• Can Scan Highly Loaded hard drives
• It has two versions such as normal and portable version. The normal version can be installed on the computer and system whereas the portable version only can install on the external or USB drive.

Stellar Phoenix Free Data Recovery Software:

This software is launched by Stellar with the advance technology which helps to recover data from the extremely damaged hard drive at free of cost. It has a well versed and easy to use user interface which can be easily navigated by non-technical users. This software runs on all Windows versions and can easily extract data from the internal as well as external hard drives. Its scanning process is quite slow, but it can read the bad sectors of the hard drives and retrieve data from them. This tool provides many features for recovering data from different sources such as hard drives, CD/DVD’s, Email Clients. It has a bunch of outstanding features which allows the user to get their lost data back.

TestDisk: 

TestDisk is an another free software, which works through the command prompt. It also works well to recover data from the hard drives, but it is little technical too. To run this data recovery software one should have the expertise. Though the software is not recommended for the non-technical users, this is the only limitation of this software. Otherwise, the tool gives 100% recovery result.

PhotoRec: 

PhtoRec software recover lost files so quickly. Firstly, it tries to find the data cluster size and check the file system whether it is corrupted or not. When it determines that the file system is not damaged, then the value can be read from the superblock or volume boot record. If the PhotoRec finds the file system corrupted then it reads the media, sector by sector for searching the first ten files and take huge time for scanning the drive. This software wok to recover only media files successfully and not for the other data type recovery.

Undelete 360: 

Undeleted 360 is another best data recovery software which helps to recover deleted data from the hard drive. It provides an outstanding way to retrieve data from the inaccessible hard disk. This software recovers data from formatted, logical failure and other factors affected hard drive. This file recovery software scans the hard disk for recovering lost files and shows them for preview in the software interface with the overwritten file status. The return percentage of this data recovery is not so good, and that’s why it is in the number five position.

Conclusion: These all free data recovery tools are useful for recovering lost data from the hard drives. The user can choose any of them for recovering their lost data, but if they are looking for a feature-rich tool which can work to recover their data from multiple drives and email clients, then Stellar Phoenix is the best choice for them.

How to Recover Data Lost During Cut and Paste?

While transferring my 2GB worth of data from my 2TB external hard drive to my computer system via cut and paste method, somehow, the external hard disk got crashed, and the transferring process has been stopped. I tried to reconnect my external hard drive into the system but found no data in it. The system recognizes the drive; only the data is invisible. Don’t know how to deal with this situation?

Losing your valuable data during cut and paste method is very common situation faced by users every day. And of course, this is not easy for ordinary users to deal with this data loss issue. When users come across such situation, then they should take some precautions to prevent permanent data loss.

Firstly, the user needs to aware of the data overwriting issue. To avoid such problem, a user should be mindful of the fact that if he put anything on the drive from which he wanted to recover his lost data, it may overwrite empty space and the probability of data recovery becomes zero.

How to Safely Recover Lost Data from the External Hard Drive?

Firstly, you can check the recycle bin of Windows to see if the missing files are available there for restoration. However, in data loss case because of cut and paste method, there are very less chances of finding your files in recycle bin. If you don’t find your files in the recycle bin, then move to the next solution. 

You need to go for the professional data recovery software before the situation turns to worst. Data recovery software is the safest solution for the lost data recovery from external or internal hard drives. You only need to download the data recovery software on your system and connect the external hard disk for recovering your lost data. Don’t download the data recovery software when the external hard drive is connected to your system as it may cause data overwritten issue. First, remove your hard drive in which you want to perform the recovery process and then download the data recovery software.

To know the detailed recovery process of Stellar Phoenix Windows data recovery software, please click on Get Deleted data back with Windows data recovery software. 

Conclusion: - The shortcut key like cut and paste is the most useable key which is used by all computer users. And this may sometimes cause data loss issue. But now, with the help of data recovery software of Stellar Phoenix, a user can quickly and easily deal with this problematic situation.  

How to Use Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Software

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery - Home is a secure and easy to use lost data recovery software. This software works efficiently to extract deleted or lost files from various types of storage devices such as USB drive, Flash Drive, SSD, HDD. etc. If you are trying this data recovery software for the first time and wondering how it works? What art the recovering steps? Then, just go through this tutorial to get your data back with just simple steps.

Step1 : Download the Stellar Phoenix Windows data recovery – Home software on your computer system.  Remember, don’t download this data software on the hard drive from which you want to recover your data as it may overwrite that drive. For example, if you want to recover your data from the external hard drive, then install this software on your computer system hard disk instead of the same external hard drive or Vice a Versa.

Step2:  Assuming, you want to recover data from computer’s internal hard drive and have installed this data recovery software on another drive. Now, Open the software interface and select the drive listed in displayed screen.

Step3: Choose the Scan type option, the software gives two type of scanning options such as “Normal” and “Advanced”. You can choose any of them as per your desire.

Step4: Once you choose the scan type and clicked on “Scan Now” button, software will start the scanning process and gave you preview of your lost files available for recovery.

Step5: Check the unchecked boxes next to the files and folders which you want to recover and click on the recovery button available on the below right corner of the software.

Step6: After clicking on recovery button, you will receive a pop-up Window asking for the location to save those recovered files and folders. Just choose the desired location and save your records.

Once software completes the data saving process, you can check your files at same location you had chosen.

Conclusion: The data recovery steps of Stellar Phoenix Windows data recovery software are so easy to execute. Even if you are not a technical user, still you can recover your lost data with this easy to use data recovery software.

How to Fix Damaged External Hard Drive without Formatting It

Today morning, I have received a very annoying message "Unallocated Drive, Do You Want to Format It?”. I didn’t format the external hard drive as there were many important files including thousands of pictures, the best collection of my favorite songs and movies. Is there any trustworthy damaged external hard drive recovery solution available, that I can use to fix the damaged hard drive error without format? I really want my data back.

When your external or internal hard drive is corrupted or damaged due to certain reasons such as unallocated file system, virus, etc., then, your data in that hard drive will usually become unreachable. And, when you tried to access it on your computer system, Windows will remind you that the hard disk is not accessible because the file system or directory is corrupted. At this point of time, you can try two hard drive recovery solutions, such as using chkdsk command or using a third-party Windows data recovery software to fix the drive and recover lost data. Before moving to recovery section, one thing you should note is to stop using the damaged hard drive, until you fully get your data back, otherwise, you will experience the permanent data recovery failure.

Use chkdsk to recognize and fix the hard drive issue without data loss.

"CHKDSK" command is users first choice for repairing the damaged hard drive and recover inaccessible data. It does not require hard drive formatting and allows you to fix a corrupted hard drive without data loss. Now let’s look how it works for repairing damaged hard drive (I'm using Windows 7 for this demonstration)

1. Plug in your External hard drive to your computer system.
2. Just go to the start menu, type in "cmd" in a search bar, hit enter and then you can see cmd

Window, which allows you to fix your corrupted external hard drive without formatting it.

3. Type in "chkdsk X (external hard drive letter): /F (F stands for Fix error)"

After, finishing all the hard drive fixing steps, Windows operating system will check and fix the file system of the hard drive It usually takes several minutes. After that, if you see the Windows successfully made corrections to the file system in the command window, then congratulations! The damaged hard drive is successfully fixed, and you can access your data with ease. If not, you should try a third-party data recovery software to repair the damaged drive and get back your data.

Use Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Tool to recover data from damaged External Hard Drive

Stellar data recovery software is a proficient data recovery tool which can be used to recover data from inaccessible or formatted hard drives. It supports to extract data from laptop’s or computers hard drives, recover formatted drives data and all storage media like CF cards, SD card, etc. With its powerful data recovery technique and user-friendly interface, it is the best option to recover your inaccessible data from damaged hard drive. After recovering all your important data, you can format your external hard drive to fix the damaged hard drive error.

Conclusion: Before going for the full version for a real damaged external hard drive data recovery, you can first use the free trial version to scan the hard disk and check what files format the software can recover. For a gradually tutorial, please follow this Get Deleted Data Back with Windows Data Recovery Software tutorial. If you don’t get a happy result, just don’t pay for it! You have nothing to lose. But if it works, you will recover your valuable data. So, try it without hesitation whenever you come in data loss situation or face damaged hard drive issue...

Get Deleted Data Back with Windows Data Recovery Software

Deletion of a data is very easy but, the recovery of same deleted data becomes expensive when we don’t know how to recover our crucial data from our storage media. Also, It’s a poor feeling when you comprehend what you've done. Luckily, now you can easily get them back without spending much time using the Windows data recovery software. Here's you will get to know how to recover deleted files or get deleted data back.

How to Get deleted data back from Windows?

Just Look in the Recycle Bin First

The very first place you should look in is the recycle bin. Check your deleted files at the obvious places where all the deleted files reside for restoration. When you delete your files from any drive then the first place where those deleted files appear is Windows' Recycle Bin. To search your deleted data in recycle bin you only need to do double click on the recycle bin icon and have a look.

If you find your files there, then you can easily drag and drop it on to the desktop to restore them. But there are times when you have emptied the recycle bin too quickly, or maybe you have permanently deleted your data by pressing the Shift-Delete shortcut key.

Check Your Shared Mails

It is still worth checking your data at other places. Just try to memorise that have you ever shared the deleted data or document via email? If yes, then open the email and search for your deleted documents, might be they are still present in inbox, outbox, draft, or in other folders.

It becomes the major concern of users that how to recover deleted data when they have permanently deleted their files from system. We help you to solve your problem and find your lost files.

Use Restore from Previous Version Option: 

To Get your data back you can use the Restore from previous version option. Just do right click on the drive from which you want to recover data and click on restore from previous version option. After the select the time in which the data were present and click on restore button.

Below Read the Steps to get lost data back from Windows operating system

Step 1. Download the Windows data recovery software and just install it. Also, don’t forget if have already accidentally deleted some data then don’t download Stellar Phoenix Windows data recovery software to the sane disk containing your lost files location. As it will overwrite your deleted data and make it difficult to get them back.

Ideally, you should download the data recovery software on another disk and connect that drive as the external one from which you want to recover your data.

Step 2. Start Windows data recovery software. When you open the software, then it will show all the available drives. Now, select the one from which you want to extract your data and click on deleted file recovery option and click on ‘scan’ button. The software will now start the scanning process and list your deleted files

Step3: Now, select the files from software interface which you want to recover and click on recovery button. After clicking on recovery button, software will ask you to choose the desired location to save your deleted files. Just browse the location and enjoy your data again.

Conclusion: As, we all know, that the prevention is better than cure. Keeping the backup of your precious data always prevent the uncertain and pathetic data loss situation. Nevertheless, if you already have lost your data and don’t have backup of that data then don’t worry, as there is a data recovery solution present for you to solve your data loss problem.

How to Recover Data From Hard Disk Drive Which Is Not Detecting?

Summary: In this article, I have described how you can recover your data from the hard disk drive which is not detected with the help of a Professional Data Recovery tool of Stellar Phoenix.  By reading this article, you will get know how easy it is to identify an external or internal hard drive and recover data from them.

A common issue which most users face is that an electronic device is not getting detected in the system. This issue occurs due to the extended usage of devices, virus attack, or file system corruption, etc. The recovery of data from undetected hard drive is not an easy task and requires help from seasoned professionals. Here, Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Home tool is a name to reckon with. It has the capability to detect invisible drives as well as recover data from it. Let’s look at how Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Home tool can help.

When you encounter the issue – ‘hard drive is not detected,’ then follow the below steps to detect your hard disk and retrieve your data:

1. Launch Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Home Tool on your system.

2. Next, click on Search Volumes Option and select the whole hard drive to detect the lost partition. After clicking on the hard disk, you will have two scanning options. Choose either as per your requirement.

3. Once, you select the option to search lost volume from the hard drive, the software will start the scanning process:

4. After completing the scanning process, you will be able to see all existing partition on your system whether deleted or not deleted:

5. When you get your deleted partition listed in software interface, simply execute recovery process as mentioned here.

Conclusion

When your hard drive becomes invisible in your system, it does not necessarily mean that you have lost your data permanently. You can avail varied professional third-party tools which offer the search lost volume option to detect your hard drive as well as recovers data from it seamlessly.