As I discussed in my previous article, all your Windows data is stored in a partition. A partition is simply a logical division of the system hard disk. The stored data is susceptible to corruption or loss due to various reasons such as: partition formatting or deletion, partition file system corruption, missing or inaccessible partitions, partition crash, data loss due to partitioning errors, Master Boot record corruption, OS re-installation,Bad sectors in hard disk, System errors, OS failures, corrupt system registries etc.
The data stored within a partition isn't deleted after partition deletion in Windows OS. The data is still present in the hard drive, only the OS cannot recognize it.
In order to recover the lost data, you need to use “Windows Partition Recovery “software.
Here, I am going to discuss one such Windows Partition Recovery software entitled Stellar Phoenix Partition Recovery – Professional. The software is globally trusted and known as one of the best Windows partition recovery software in aspects of reliability and efficiency.
Some accentuating features of the software are:
1. Efficient ‘Windows Drive Recovery': Using the tool, you can recover lost data from corrupt/ formatted/ inaccessible partitions on Windows drive.
The supported file systems are FAT, NTFS, and ExFAT.
2. Raw Partition Recovery: This is an advanced feature for signature based recovery. This feature can be used if the initial recovery fails or if the corruption level is too high.
This feature also let you perform recovery of user-defined file formats by adding new file headers to the existing list of files.
3. It lets you recover data from damaged CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD and DVD-RW discs. The supported media are: discs (CDs, DVDs, HD DVDs, Blu-ray) burnt on Windows, Linux, UNIX, and Mac systems.
4 Preview of the recoverable data: It let you preview the recoverable data in Classic tree, File Type tree, and Filtered tree views.
5 Recover completely lost/missing partitions: Using the tool, you can search the missing volumes that were totally inaccessible. You can use ‘Search Lost Volume' feature to find the missing volumes on your drive and then recover the lost data.
6 It let you recover photos, videos, movies, and other multimedia files from digital cameras, laptop/desktop hard drives, memory cards, and external media devices.
7 It let you Perform mail recovery for MS Outlook and Outlook Express.
8 It let you save the recovered data in a compressed 'zip' folder
9 Along with the startling Windows drive recovery features, it also offers various advanced tools: SMART, Image Your Hard Disk, System startup disc, Hard Drive Cloning.
How to perform Deleted Windows Partition Recovery?
First download and Install the software from here.
The main interface of the software offers options for Data Recovery (Drive Recovery, Photo Recovery, CD DVD Recovery, and Email Recovery), Advance Option (Create Image, Clone Drive, and Drive Status), and Recovery from Image.
Working of the software is given as below:
To perform Drive Recovery:
1.Click 'Drive Recovery’, the Drive recovery module will be opened.
2.All the volumes in the system will get listed in the flying pane. From the listed volumes, select the desired volume to recover data from.
3.At the right of the pane, you are given data recovery options (Quick Recovery, Deleted Recovery, Advanced Recovery, and Raw Recovery).
4.Select the desired option and start scanning.
5.After clicking start scanning, the scan process will begin.
6.Once it’s completed, you can preview the recoverable files in the left pane. Software also facilitates flying preview pane which lets you see the preview of recoverable files and folders even when the scanning is in progress.
7.Select the destination for saving the recovered data. Click OK.
8.Select the desired items to be saved.
9.Click ‘Recover'
To perform Photo Recovery:
1.Click 'Photo Recovery' to open the Photo Recovery module.
2.Select the desired volumes/drive/media location that is to be searched for photos.
3.If you are looking for any specific file type to recover, you can do so by using 'File Type' option. Click 'Scan Now’ to begin scanning the problem media.
4.After completion of scan, select the destination to save the recovered data and then 'Recover.
To perform CD DVD Recovery:
1.Under 'Data Recovery' tab, CD DVD Recovery module is listed, click on it.
2.Select your optical drive and click 'Scan Now'.
3.After completion of scan, select the destination to save the recovered data and then 'Recover.
To perform Email Recovery:
1.Click 'Email Recovery' to open the Email Recovery module.
2.Select appropriate mail client' box (Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express) then 'Select PST' or 'Select OST' accordingly. You can manually choose the problem PST files or let the software scans for any particular PST files (Helpful if you forget the location of your desired PST file).
3.Then click 'Start Recovery’.
4.After completion of scan, select the 'Save as' option and 'Destination Path to save the recovered file.’
To perform Recovery from Image:
This tool facilitate convenient option to create image of failing or dying hard drive so you can perform recovery at any time in future even the drive completely fails. Follow below mentioned steps to create image and recover your files:
1.Click 'Recovery from Image'.
2.Select the .IMG file from which you want to recover your data. Make sure that you’ve already created an image for recovery. Any image created previously using the tool will be automatically listed under this option.
3.After choosing the IMG file, click 'Scan Image' to recover data from it.
Advance option:
Here, you’ll find three options Create Image, Clone Drive, Drive Status that becomes really useful in critical circumstances.
- Click ' Create Image' option to create an .IMG backup of your selected volume or hard disk.
- Click 'Clone Drive' option to clone the selected disk (source) at your desired location (destination).
- Click ' Drive Status' option to know about the hard disk status, volume information and avail the SMART features.
Hopefully, the above article will be beneficial for those who are looking for Windows partition recovery methods.
