How to Recover Lost Data after Repartitioning a Hard Drive

Why You Repartition a Hard Drive

When you get a new hard drive, the first thing you need to do is to create partitions and format them, then you can save data on the partitions. But why sometimes do you need to repartition a hard drive? Usually, hard drive repartition is operated to optimize the partition arrangement. For example, the system partition is running out of space, excessive/insufficient numbers of partitions, longing for a dual boot system, or other reasons. In these cases, you can extend partitions, shrink partitions, create new partitions, merge partitions, etc. for better data management.

Repartition Hard Drive Is Risky – Not 100% Safe

How do you repartition a hard drive? By formatting the drive to recreate partitions or by resizing the partitions directly? Obviously the latter one that avoids full backup is more reasonable. But please keep this in mind: repartitioning a hard drive is not always 100% safe and may lead to data loss if you encounter any interruptions or incorrect operations to the hard drive. Errors like ‘Exception Processing Message’, ‘Not Enough Memory’, etc. can make your hard drive inaccessible and even cause your partition missing after repartitioning the hard drive. This is because some errors caused during repartition may lead to MBR corruption or partition table damage, then the computer refuses to boot or displays error messages saying you are not allowed to access files from partitions. However, the risk remains small.

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Then what should you do if bad things really happen? If the lost data are significant and you didn’t make any backup, then you will have to find a way out to recover data after repartitioning hard drive. It is recommended to make use of proficient hard drive recovery software. The good news is that you can use MiniTool Power Data Recovery to do this.

Recover Lost Data after Repartitioning a Hard Drive

The Possibility of Data Recovery after Repartition

Data can be lost due to various reasons, ranging from unintentional deletion and virus infection to partition loss, device crashes, and more. However, lost access entries of lost files don’t mean data is destroyed. The actual data of those files is still saved on the disk and is recoverable. Nevertheless, the disk space of the lost or deleted files is marked as usable. New saved data might overwrite the lost data, leading to lost files being irrecoverable. Hence, you are highly suggested to recover deleted files after repartition as soon as possible.

About Power Data Recovery

MiniTool has developed a professional data recovery software, MiniTool Power Data Recovery. This software is compatible with Windows operating systems, including Windows 8/10/11, Windows XP, Windows Vista, etc., and other Windows-recognized data storage devices, such as SD cards, USB drives, external hard drives, and so on.

Additionally, this free data recovery software can handle data recovery tasks under various situations, encompassing mistaken deletion, partition loss, disk formatting, device crashes, malware attacks, etc. Furthermore, it supports recovering documents, pictures, videos, audio, databases, compressed folders, and other types of files.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery contains several editions with different technique supports to meet the diverse requirements of users. You can visit the License Comparison page to get detailed information about different versions and choose one edition that suits you best. It is also an ideal option to use MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free for a try to experience its features and restore 1GB of files for free.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

How to Do Data Recovery after Repartition

The intuitive user interface and clear data recovery instructions are friendly to users even if you are new to data recovery. Here is a comprehensive data recovery guidance to help you recover data after partition.

Step 1. Download and install MiniTool Power Data Recovery on your computer. If you need to recover data from a repartitioned external drive, you should connect the device to your computer first and launch the software. Make sure that the software has detected your device.

Choose the target partition to scan. You are advised to change to the Devices tab and scan the whole disk to ensure that all your files can be found. However, the scan duration might last longer, which is determined by the number of files and the capacity of the scan disk. For the best data recovery result, please wait patiently until the process is finished itself.

Step 2. If you scan the whole disk, there should be numerous files listed under the Path tab. Finding target files among thousands of files could be a tiresome task. Here are some embedded features that can improve the efficiency of locating files

• Type: Files are classified by their types and file formats under this tab. If you are looking for a specific file type, this function helps a lot.
• Filter: Setting filter criteria can filter out unnecessary files. You can restrict file size, file type, file category, and file last modified date to find your required files.
• Search: Searching a specific file name with its file name helps to shorten the file locating time. The feature can do a preliminary filter and then you can check those files with the Preview feature.

Step 3. Choose the files you want to restore and click Save. You should choose another save path for your recovered files to avoid data overwriting in the prompt window.

When the software has completed data recovery from partitioned hard disk, close the software and head to the destination to check your restored files.

As we explained before, MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free has only 1GB of free data recovery capacity. To break the limit, you need to get an advanced edition.

Final Words

After reading this post, you should know how to complete data recovery after repartition with MiniTool Power Data Recovery. Choosing a proper tool simplifies the data recovery process effectively. If you have any problem using MiniTool software, feel free to let us know via [email protected].