Don't know how to recover data from damaged partitions in full on your own? Do you want to recover information from logical partitions after formatting, erroneous reallocation of disks, or after complete destruction of the structure of the NTFS / FAT file system?
How to recover a logical partition
program:
Starus Partition Recovery
Installing Starus Partition Recovery will help you to easily cope with the tasks. The entire structure of files and folders will be restored, and the data will be saved as it was. The product is a fundamentally new tool for recovering logical partitions and reanimating data after errors in NTFS / FAT operating systems. The uniqueness of the program lies in the ability to reconstruct the data location structure "from scratch" in case of severe damage or complete absence of the file system.
To simplify the task of recovering deleted data, consider the work of the program in two directions - fast data recovery and data recovery from damaged partitions.
Instant analysis
In the case when the media is detected by the system, logical partitions are available, the file structure of the system is not damaged - it is possible to restore the necessary information in a matter of seconds.
The process boils down to performing a few simple steps:
- Select the desired disk on the left side of the program, which contains the deleted files.
- In the window that appears, select the type of analysis "Fast scan"
- Upon completion of the scanning process, all found directories and folders will be displayed on the left side of the program. Having selected the necessary folder on the left, you can view its contents in the main part of the program. Next, select the necessary files, folders and save them to the media or folder specified by us.
Also, for convenience, you can use the following options:
- the "Search" option to find the required file;
- the "Filter" option in the "View" menu to see only deleted, only existing or all found files;
- if the "Preview" option is active, then by selecting the file, you can immediately view its contents in the upper right part of the program.
Recovering data from damaged partitions
In the case when the partitions with your data are not displayed by the system, you need to search for deleted volumes.
To do this, on the left side, select the hard drive on which you want to find the deleted partition, and in the "File" menu, select the "Find drives" option. In the window that appears, specify the type of file systems to be searched for and the search area. All found disks will appear in the explorer tree, and you can work with them as with existing partitions.
Complete analysis
The main stage of data recovery from damaged or formatted disks is scanning of selected partitions. After selecting the recovery area, the "Type of Analysis" wizard opens. If the NTFS or FAT file system is damaged - partitions exist as drive letters, but when reading the directory an error is displayed, or an empty directory, use the "Full analysis" of the disk.
The program will scan the entire file system of the disk and find all files that can be recovered. The process can take a long time, however, the data and their location structure will be restored in full.
Safe recovery from an exact disk copy
Using a virtual disk image, you can recover the necessary deleted data without worrying about the safety of the original data on the physical media. In addition, the physical media can be used further and work as usual.
Another nice thing is that the created image can be used in any program.
To create an image, select the required logical partition or physical disk and click the "Save Disk" button on the toolbar. In the window that opens, specify the disk area to save, as well as the name and location of the image file that will be created.
Deep Scan
The structure of the location of data deleted in time a very long time ago is not always possible to restore due to overwriting of superficially other information. However, the files themselves can still be found and restored. In parallel with the disk analysis, the program searches for deleted files by their signatures (search by file contents). The found files are located in the "$ Deep Analysis" folder at the root of the disk and sorted by extension.
Saving recovered data
To restore a scanned partition while preserving its structure, or to restore only some files of the selected directory, select the selected volumes or files and click the "Restore" button on the main panel. You will be prompted to choose one of four save methods:
- save to hard drive
- burning to CD / DVD
- creating a virtual ISO image
- saving to internet via FTP server
With tool Starus Partition Recovery data recovery procedure for an ordinary user will not be difficult. A Windows Explorer-style interface combined with an easy-to-use step-by-step wizard make the recovery process an easy task. At the same time, the program is not deprived of options for recovering information at a professional level:
- The HEX editor built into the program allows you to view the contents of files, partitions or physical disks.
- Disk manager - this function allows you to view the location of logical partitions on physical media, taking into account their size and sequence. All disk management functions are available in this window.
- Selecting the beginning of a file is an option that allows you to accurately determine the beginning of a file (the first sector of its content).
Remember - the success of your data recovery primarily depends on the speed of their recovery!
Surely any user of Windows operating systems knows that in the event of unexpected critical failures, their performance can be restored. This is the responsibility of the Windows recovery partition, which stores the files necessary to perform such a procedure. However, they take up a lot of hard disk space (sometimes up to 15 GB, as in Windows 8). This is especially felt on hard drives with small volumes. And many, quite rightly, begin to wonder about freeing up space, which is occupied by the notorious recovery section.
How to remove it and whether it can be done at all, we will consider further. But I want to immediately warn all users that when performing this procedure you will have to, as they say, sweat, and such actions should be performed only at your own peril and risk.
What is a recovery partition and is it needed?
The partition itself, as is already clear, is a reserved space on the hard disk, and in the system partition where the installed OS is located.
As a rule, depending on the modification of the system, its size can vary, but usually it is about 300-500 MB. The Recovery folder will be located here, which contains the WindowsRE directory with the Winre.wim image attached to it. It also seems completely logical that all this is hidden from the user's eyes so that he does not accidentally (or intentionally) delete the necessary recovery tools.
But this is not the only thing. There are two more hidden partitions on the disk, the existence of which the user does not even know. This is an EFI system partition with a volume of about 100 MB and a 128 MB MSR partition responsible for GPT partitioning. Thus, for example, the question of how to delete the recovery partition in Windows 10 boils down to removing not one, but three partitions from the system disk in order to attach them to the available space.
I must say that not all users realize that the system recovery tools can be found both on the installation media and on special disks for rolling back and fixing system errors. Therefore, in some cases, you can not only hide the recovery partition, but also delete it, as they say, without a twinge of conscience. Several methods can be proposed for this.
Reinstallation Will the recovery partition be removed?
To begin with, a few words about re-installation. Some users naively believe that reinstalling Windows 10 or any other modification with full formatting of the system disk will destroy the above partitions.
Nothing like this! Yes, at the stage of choosing a disk for installing the OS, absolutely all partitions will be displayed, and formatting will really combine them into one. But after all, in a "clean" system, which the user receives immediately after installation, automatic system recovery is activated by default, so the OS itself, whether you like it or not, again reserves space on the hard drive, where it writes the necessary information immediately.
Recovery partition: how to delete via command line?
So, let's start with the most difficult, but absolutely effective method, which involves the use of the command console (cmd), which must be run with administrator rights.
But before that, you need to follow a few simple steps. First, you need to create a recovery disc. If you are using the Restore menu in the Control Panel, you will need a flash drive, if you are using the backup and restore section, you will be using optical media. A flash drive with a capacity of 64 GB and above is convenient in that you can execute full data on it from the recovery partition itself (but more on that later).
Further, the solution to the problem of how to remove the recovery partition from the hard drive is to select the line of special boot options (for Windows 10) in the update and security menu, which is in the options section, or install removable media as the first boot device in the BIOS.
After the restart, at the beginning of the installation of the operating system, the command line is called by the combination Shift + F10, in which the following commands are sequentially written:
- diskpart;
- lis dis (list of all partitions);
- sel dis 0 (select a drive with an installed OS);
- lis par (view sections);
- sel par 1 (selection of the first section);
- del par override (deleting the first section);
- sel par 2 (selection of the second section);
- del par override (delete the second section);
- sel par 3 (selection of the third section);
- del par override (deletes the third section);
- create par efi size \u003d 100 (create an EFI encrypted partition with a size of 100 MB);
- create par msr size \u003d 128 (create an MSR partition with a size of 128 MB);
- lis vol (view sections);
- exit (exit from diskpart);
- bcdboot C: \\ Windows (install boot partition);
- exit (exit the console completely).
Disk management with AOMEI
The reboot field should, for ease of further operations, use the AOMEI application, select the disk to which you want to attach the place, and then use the resize / move line in the menu on the left side.
Next, move the section is selected, and the slider is dragged to the limit (in order to completely allocate all the space under the C drive. Be sure to note that after such actions there are zeros on the line "Unallocated space before").
Click "OK" and "Apply". In the window of pending operations that appears, the transition button is pressed, after which you need to agree with the instructions in the message. After that, a black window of the free space mode will appear. When the process is complete, the recovery partition will be deleted and the freed space will be attached to the system partition.
Methodology for Windows 8 and higher
Now let's talk about how to delete the recovery partition in versions of Windows 8 and higher (in the seventh modification and below, this solution does not work).
Remember when we were talking about creating a bootable USB flash drive at the first stage? So, if you put a tick in front of the backup line, the entire section, user files and programs can be transferred to this medium. True, this may even take several hours and a flash drive larger than 64 GB in volume.
But at the end of the process, the system itself will offer to delete the desired recovery partition. We agree and immediately see how much space is freed up.
Conclusion
It remains to say that it is advisable to delete the desired partition only if the recovery in any situation is planned to be done exclusively from removable media, which must be created in advance. If for some reason it is not at hand, it will be absolutely impossible to roll back the system even to the factory state without reinstalling.
Increasing small technical Windows partitions - recovery and EFI encrypted partitions on a GPT disk, as well as a System Reserved partition on an MBR disk - may be required if there is not enough free space to perform operations such as upgrading from one version of Windows to another, later. It is impossible to perform such a task using standard Windows tools, but this task can be done by third-party programs for working with disk space, in particular, the well-known AOMEI Partition Assistant. The task is difficult; nevertheless, it can be performed by means of the basic edition of the Standard Edition, which can be downloaded from the website of the creators for free. Below we will take a closer look at how this program can be used to increase the size of any of the technical sections of Windows.
Important: before performing the operations described below, it is advisable to create a backup copy of Windows and acquire the rescue media of the backup program. Protection measures in the form of creating a restore point or system snapshot are not enough. It is necessary to create a full-fledged backup, which in case of failure will be able to restore not only the system C partition, but also the technical Windows partitions. As such backup programs, you can use EaseUS Todo Backup, products of companies and Paragon. When carrying out the operations described below on the laptop, it must be connected to the mains in order to prevent the AOMEI Partition Assistant from interrupting in pre-boot mode due to a low battery.
With the help of AOMEI Partition Assistant, we will slightly shrink the system C partition and move it, and the freed up disk space will be attached to the technical partitions. We will consider the joining of space to the technical sections for each of the disk partition styles separately. But the operation to reduce the C partition and move it will be the same - for MBR disks, as for GPT disks.
1. Shrinking and moving section C
To shrink partition C, click on it in the AOMEI Partition Assistant window. In the context menu, select the resize section.
First of all, activate the option "I need to move the section." After activating this option, a slider appears in the graphic block of the section on the left. The slider must be moved to the right until the required amount of MB is released. The freed space will be displayed in the “Unallocated space in front” column. In this column, the value of the freed space can be edited with the "more / less" buttons. Or you can even enter a specific number using the keyboard. It will even be more convenient if, for example, very little space needs to be taken from section C. Having decided on the freed up space, press the "Advanced" button and allow the alignment of the sections. This is an optimizing operation that will be carried out along with the main designated operations. Click "Ok".
2. Increasing the "System Reserved" partition on the MBR disk
As you can see in the screenshot, in our case, 229 MB is disconnected from the C section. To attach them to the "System Reserved" section, call the context menu on the latter and, as in the previous case, select the operation to resize the section.
3 Pull the slider of the graphic block from left to right until it stops. Next, click the "Advanced" button and activate the operation to align partitions. Click "Ok".
Now all that remains is to apply all the planned operations. To do this, press the "Apply" button.
5 After that, we confirm our decision twice more - first in the window with a list of pending operations by pressing the "Go" button, then by pressing the "Yes" button in a small window warning of the program's transition to pre-boot mode. Further, it remains only to wait until AOMEI Partition Assistant will carry out all the assigned operations.
3. Increase the encrypted EFI partition on a GPT disk
There are usually two technical partitions on a GPT disk - the Recovery partition and the encrypted EFI. But in some cases, there can be as many as three technical partitions: in addition to the two mentioned, a GPT disk can also contain a small MSR (Microsoft Reserved Partition) partition. If the latter exists, it must be moved closer to the C partition. This operation swaps the MSR with the unallocated space that was freed for later attachment to the EFI partition. You cannot delete the MSR section.
3.1. Moving the MSR section
In our case, we have an MSR partition with a size of 16 MB. Click on the context menu on it and select the operation to move the section.
6 We grab the display of the section in the graphic block with the mouse and move it to the right, to the very end. Click "Ok".
3.2. Resizing EFI Partition
Now we will work directly with the EFI partition. We select it and in the context menu we launch the operation to resize the partition.
8 In the graphic block of the section, drag the slider to the right to the end. Click the "Advanced" button and assign additional alignment of the sections. Click "Ok".
That's it - the expansion of the EFI partition is planned, now you can start applying all assigned operations. Click "Apply" and confirm the start of operations.
10 
4. Increasing the recovery partition on a GPT disk
To enlarge the recovery partition of a GPT disk, it is necessary to shrink the C partition, as described in paragraph 1 of the article, and move the MSR partition, if it is present on the disk, as indicated in paragraph 3.1. Following the same principle as the MSR partition was moved, then the EFI partition must be moved. After that, the recovery partition and the freed up space will be side by side. On the EFI section, call the context menu, select the move operation.
12 We grab the display of the section in the graphic block with the mouse and move it to the very end. Click "Ok".
The last operation will be, respectively, merging unallocated space and recovery partition. In the context menu of the latter, select "Resize Partition".
14 Drag the slider from left to right to the very end. Click the "Advanced" button and enable the alignment of the sections. Click "Ok".
All necessary operations are planned, it remains only to start the process of their application.
16 Have a great day!
Hello admin! For the second time in my life I am buying myself a laptop and I can’t figure out the hidden partitions on its hard drive! I bought my first laptop for a long time, yetwith Windows 7 preinstalledin 2009 and there were two hidden partitions, yesterday I bought a laptop with Windows 8.1, and it already has three hidden partitions, and after the upgrade to Windows 10 there were already four, and one IT specialist said that there is also a fifth partition, but you can see it only using the command line or a special program! Explain to a non-professional why they are needed, because in total they take up 20 GB of disk space on my laptop.
What hidden partitions of a Windows 10 laptop contain
Hello friends! On all modern laptops with Windows 7, 8.1, 10 operating systems, you will see hidden partitions on the hard drive. Why they are needed, how to view their contents and what will happen if you delete them, I will tell you about all this in today's article.
Hidden partitions on laptops appeared along with the Windows 7 operating system. There were no hidden partitions on Windows XP, an installation disk with the operating system came with the laptops, if the XP-device was behaving unstable, then it could easily be reinstalled using the distribution kit.
Windows Vista
With the advent (in 2007) operating systemWindows Vista the rules have changed, when buying a laptop, no installation disk was already attached, but on a laptop it was possible to create recovery DVDs and, if necessary, restore Vista using them. Many laptop models already included recovery discs in the box.
Windows 7
In 2009, on laptops with Windows 7 preinstalled, I first saw two hidden partitions, the first with a size of 9 GB (recovery partition) and the second for System Reserved with a volume of 100 MB.
Note: on laptops of many manufacturers, on the contrary, the first section was System Reserved 100 MB, and the last (third or fourth) recovery partition is 9-15 GB.
Naturally, I immediately wanted to know what is inside these sections! E if you assign a letterthe first hidden section -System Reserved System Reserved 100 MB, then it turns out that the section containsin itself boot storage configuration files (BCD) Boot folder and system boot manager (bootmgr file) - these files are responsible for loading the operating system.
The second partition (9 GB) contained (a compressed Windows 7 image file divided into several parts and a Recovery rollback program, with which it was possible to return the laptop to its factory state even if it did not boot.
Windows 8, 8.1, 10
On October 26, 2012, laptops appeared with Windows 8 installed, and a year later Windows 8.1 and they already had the UEFI BIOS with the Secure Boot secure boot protocol, and contained four hidden partitions, including the third hidden MSR service partition that is not visible in Disk Management (size 128 MB), you can see it using the command line
or any hard disk partition manager, for example .
When updating Windows 8.1 before Windows 10 has another (fifth) hidden partition
You can see all the existing partitions of your laptop hard disk not only using AOMEI Partition, but also using the command line. Run the command line as administrator, enter the commands:
diskpart
lis dis
sel dis 0
lis par
So, what are the hidden sections of the new laptop updated from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10?
How to enter a hidden section and see what's there?
Friends, if you enter the Disk Management of the laptop and click on the hidden section with the right mouse, then only "Help" will open, that is, assign hidden sectionletter and enter it will not work.
This can be done in another way. For instance, let's take a look at the hidden partition (463 MB) that was created when upgrading from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10.
Run the command line as administrator, enter the commands:
diskpart
lis vol
sel vol 1 (1 hidden partition number created when updating fromWin 8.1 to Win 10), you may have a different number.
assign
Drive or mount point assignment was successful.
exit
exit
Windows 10 assigned the letter (E :) to our hidden partition and it is visible in Explorer, we go into it.
The hidden section contains the Recovery folder.
The Recovery folder contains a folder WindowsRE and is already in ita custom image with Windows 10 Recovery Environment (Winre.wim).
So we have guessed the secret of this hidden section, which is created during the upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, it contains all the emergency system recovery tools. If this hidden section is deleted, then we will not be able to restore Windows 10 in the recovery environment.
Let me remind you how the recovery environment works.
Rebooting Windows 10 while pressing the key Shift.
And we enter the Windows 10 recovery environment,
Diagnostics -> Extra options... We see all the available tools of the operating system recovery environment.
Now we format or completely delete the hidden section.
We enter the recovery environment and see that no tool is available to us.
Also, we will not be able to create a USB flash drive or a Windows 10 recovery drive, an error will be issued“We are unable to create a recovery disc on this computer. Some required files are missing. Use the Windows installation media to troubleshoot the computer does not boot. That is, when restoring Windows 10, we will have to boot from the operating system distribution kit, since it also has recovery environment files.
At the end of the article, let's take a look at the other hidden sections of the Windows 10 laptop:
1. The first hidden partition of 400 MB contains Windows 8.1 recovery environment files, the Windows RE folder containsa custom image with Windows 8.1 Recovery Environment (Winre.wim). H since we upgraded to Windows 10 and are not going to roll back toWindows 8.1 , then we no longer need this section and we can delete it.
2. Second hidden partition 300 MB in size Healthy (Encrypted (EFI) System Partition) FAT32contains Boot Store Configuration (BCD) files - EFI \\ Microsoft \\ Boot folder. In no case should you touch this section, otherwise you will not boot into Win 10.
3. Third hidden and not visible in Disk Management service partition MSR, required for GPT partitioning on UEFI systems, NTFS file system,size 128 MB.
4. We have already disassembled the fourth hidden 400 MB partition, on it, like on the first hidden 400 MB partition, there are recovery environment files, not Windows 8.1, but Windows 10.
5. On the fifth section, in the Recovery folder, there is a factory image install.wim with Windows 8.1. Using this section, you can restore your factory settings at any time, that is, Windows 8.1.
Total: Of all the hidden partitions of a laptop that has been updated from Windows 8.1 to Win 10, only the first 400 MB partition can be deleted without consequences (but what will it give you). The rest, whatever one may say, are still needed.
A feature of the Windows 7 operating system, as well as a big surprise for users who first installed this system on their computer, was the hidden partition System Reserved (Reserved by the system). In this article I will try to reveal the functions and benefits of this innovation.
Purpose of a hidden partition
If Windows 7 is your first operating system, then you may not even be aware of the existence of this partition. It is not visible in Windows Explorer. Over time, if the main purpose of the computer is not playing and not surfing the Internet, you will come to "Disk Management" and you will see that apart from one or two partitions on the hard disk there is little space. It looks like a separate section, but it does not have a letter, the name is not clear. What is it for then?
The main purpose of this section is to protect operating system boot files. This section contains the boot store configuration (BCD) files and the system boot loader (bootmgr file). It is believed that using this partition, you can perform a system recovery (sometimes called the recovery partition). This is not entirely true, since the volume of all files located on the partition System Reserved, does not exceed 30-35 MB, while the volume of recovery files is about 150 MB. Although you enter the recovery environment using this partition, there is no image of the recovery environment on this partition. It is located in a hidden system folder Recovery on the operating system partition
Do not confuse the hidden partition reserved by the system for boot files and the recovery partition created by manufacturers to return the computer to a "factory state". Such sections have completely different attributes. Moreover, on modern computers (especially laptops), both of these sections are necessarily present.
Automatic partition creation during operating system installation
To be honest, it was a mystery to me why in one case, when installing the system, a hidden partition is created, and in the other not. The answer to the question came from experiments.
There are several prerequisites for creating a section:
- The first and main condition is to boot from an external device (DVD, USB). when running the installer from under Windows, you will not be able to work with hard disk partitions;
- The total number of primary (primary) hard disk partitions before starting the installation should not exceed 3. That is, if the space of your hard disk has already been divided into 4 such partitions before the installation starts, then a hidden 100 MB partition will not be formed, and the download files will be located on the already existing active partition. Moreover, this may not be the partition on which the system is installed. The number of logical partitions on the extended does not matter.
- The partition into which the installation is performed must be the first in a row (top, in the graphical representation of disk space);
- The operating system must be installed to an unallocated area of \u200b\u200bthe disk. If the disk is already partitioned, then when choosing a partition for installing the system, you need to not only format it, but also create it anew, that is, you must first delete the partition for installation. Accordingly, if you do not want a partition created on your hard disk System Reserved, do not delete the existing one;
One point is interesting in this connection. If the system installation partition and the active partition are not the same, after the installation is completed, the active partition becomes invisible. This happens because the installer first places the Windows 7 boot files on the active partition, and then "unmounts" it - deleting the letter. That is why many users since the beta version of Windows 7 (and even now, sometimes it happens), when installing the system on an inactive partition, "lost" the partition with the already installed system (with Windows XP, for example). The cause of invisibility can be easily corrected by assigning a letter to the active partition in the Disk Management snap-in.
Advantages and disadvantages
As I mentioned earlier, the purpose of the hidden partition is to protect the boot data store. Since this section is unrelated to the others, an operation such as shrinking disk space does not affect the boot files, thus avoiding the hassles of compression, such as boot messages. "Bootmgr is compressed"... With certain knowledge and skills, boot recovery is not such a difficult process, but it takes some time. In their absence, the case may end with a reinstallation of the system.
The second advantage is the less time-consuming process of reinstalling one of the systems if you have several of them on the same computer. You can read about this in the article "Restoring the joint boot of Windows 7 and Windows XP when reinstalling one of them" - section "Option two - recovery partition created".
Finally, having a hidden partition is another form of foolproof protection. " To be honest, the experience of helping users in solving problems with the operating system allows us to conclude that problems often arise due to a lack of experience and knowledge, as well as a lack of understanding of many processes that ensure the stable operation of the operating system.
A few words can also be said about the shortcomings, although it is more correct to attribute them to inconveniences. They are connected with the fact that when organizing a joint boot with Windows XP, you have to assign and delete the letter of the hidden partition to place the XP boot files on it. But I think the advantages of this section outweigh this disadvantage.
Conclusion
The hidden System Reserved section in Windows 7 is another step in the evolution of Windows boot, which has undergone significant changes in Windows Vista. Thanks to this section, the system boot becomes more reliable and less dependent on user actions.
I would like to express my deep gratitude to Vadim Sterkin for reviewing the article and assistance in publishing.
