Hard Disk Partition Erasure

[cricman47]

I purchased a new PC recently with 3tb hard drive following a ahrd disk failure.   I partitioned the hard drive to provide areas for data storage, photos and, because the C: drive under windows 10 tends to fill quickly, I set up a partion A: for programs.  All programs installed satisfactorily and the data transferred from back ups.

This morning the HP Support Assistant recommended a BIOS update and a graphics driver update.   I installed both following recommended  procedures.

After the updates no programs were availlable from the start desktop.    On further inspection I found that the A: drive was no longer recognised and not shown on File Explorer although the shortcuts still appear in the start menu (full pprogram list).    However clicking on them brought an eror message that the link was no longer valid and the related programmes must be uninstalled and reisnsalled.   Thus all my work to rebuild my set-up has been destroyed.

I have reinstalled MS Office 2010 (it automatically installed on C: drive) and it works.   It even has the list of recent files from the previous installatin (on A: drive).

Is there any way of recovering this situation?  Does anyone know what might have caused it?   I am worried that the other partions may also disappear with considerable data loss (although back ups should be avaialble).    I am also reluctant to pursue any future HP recommended updates.

[banhien]

Hi,

I don't know what you've done exactly but choosing A: as a drive on physical HDD could be a big mistake. There are some drive letters which are used for something and during the good old days A: was for diskette drive. BIOS may stll think that way.

Now, please create new partition using different letter (say from G to Y) and start over again.

Regards.

[cricman47]

Thanks, banhien.   The A: drive was working fine until I followed HP's recommendation and updated the BIOS.    The recommended procedure is for the update to create a partiton on the hard drive, which it has done (Z: HP_Tools).   At the same time the A: partition has disappeared.   An extrordinary conincidence if this is not the result of the BIOS update.

I am already trying to reinstall elsewhere but some programs insist they must reinstall where the original was located.   They then have a problem bacause the drive no longer exists and the installation hanges.    Not helpful.   I am also annoyed that I have lost 250gb of storage.

I understand your comment re A: dives having historically been the loaction for the floppy disk but if using this is a problem. why is this drive still offered as an option when partioning with no warning of any possible problems?

I still want to understand exactly what has happened and I would worry that any future update recommended by HP might similalry affect other partions on my hard drive.

[mdklassen · Accepted solution]

> Lost 250 GB.

Open the Windows "Disk Management" tool, to see something like:

On my system, "Disk 0" is a 120GB (120 * 1000-to-a-large power) disk-drive -- mathematically equivalent to 111.79  times 2-to-a-very-large power.   You can see that the 100MB partition is *NOT* assigned a drive-letter, while the 111.GB partition is assigned the 'C:' drive-letter.

If you find a 250GB partition that no longer is assigned a drive-letter (that previously was 'A:'), you can right-mouse-button click on that partition, and choose to assign a drive-letter (such as 'A:') to that partition.

Tell us if this works.

[cricman47]

Thank You very much, mdklassen.   You are very close to being right and have helped me solve the problem.    I should have looked a little more closely at an earlier stage.

It seems that, in setting up a BIOS partition, the hard disk was reorganised and for some reason the label was removed from the A: drive.   It also seems the disc was divided in two and I had not noticed the now unlabelled section in the enw disk area.  Having re-allocated the original drive label , all is now working again.

Perhaps banhien was right that allocating the A: label to the drive was risky and future updates might lead to a similar or more disastrous result.    If I reallocate the drive label (to, say, J:) will the system stll find the contents or will any links be destroyed?

[mdklassen]

> Perhaps banhien was right that allocating the A: label to the drive was risky and future updates might lead to a similar or more disastrous result.   

Perhaps.  Back in the "dark ages", drive-letters were assigned:

A: 8-inch or 5.25-inch "floppy" diskette (The MS DOS Operating System did fit onto one 360 Kilobyte diskette);

B: 8-inch or 5.25-inch "floppy" diskette (your "data" files were kept on this second diskette),

    or 3.5-inch "stiffy" diskette (to help you migrate from the 5.25-inch diskettes to the "new" "high-density" (720K) or "double-high-density" (1440K) media;

C: hard-drive;

😧 CD-ROM (not even a CD-writer!);

Now, many, many, years later, given the fact that modern versions of Windows do not "block" you from assigning 'A:' to any device, I see no harm in assigning 'A:' to some device.  As you indicated, it seems to be "user-error", rather than a Windows Update, that created your problem.

Until recently, motherboards contained circuitry for 44-strand parallel-cable support for "diskettes".

Unless you used BIOS SETUP to "disable" that circuitry, Windows might "reserve" the 'A:' drive-letter for that circuitry, even when no physical hardware was present, preventing you from assigning 'A:' to anything.

> If I reallocate the drive label (to, say 'J:', will the system stll find the contents ???

Yes, once you point to the 'J:' drive.

> or will any links be destroyed?

Not "destroyed", but just "broken".

If you have "desktop shortcuts" that point to 'A:', they will become invalid, until you correct them, within the 'Properties' window for that shortcut.

If you have "recently used files" (Microsoft Word keeps such a list), then those links will also become invalid -- Word may show you the saved path, e.g., 'A:\BillGates\Personal\2017\June\Net-Worth.doc', so that you can "navigate" to the correct file in the correct folder.