My computer has just made me it's b**ch and I have never felt like more of a noob. My primary drive is divided into 2 partitions; C: for windows 7 and G: for most of my applications and program files. At the start of this I just wanted to put windows 7 on a thumb drive so I could install it on a netbook. I was using DiskPart via a command prompt to format the thumb drive and prepare it to be made bootable. While the drive was formatting I decided to log into my server via VNC and do some multitasking, but the shortcut for VNC (installed on drive G said it couldn't find the file. So I went in to my computer to see what was up and G: was GONE. In a panic, thinking that I had somehow selected the wrong disk to format, I stopped the formatting and opened a program called MiniTool Partition Wizard, an awesome little free tool for managing hard drives. It showed that my partition was still there, and browsing through it it appears my files were all intact, but the drive letter had been changed to an asterisk and the partition set to inactive. So I changed the drive letter back to G: and set the partition as active (NOT primary) and rebooted my computer. Now I can't boot into windows at all because it says my boot manager is missing! What the H*LL did I do!? I think the reason the system thinks the boot manager is missing is because it's trying to boot from G: which is not a boot partition (although that's just a hunch). I have never felt like such a noob. How did I manage to screw this up so bad and (more importantly) how do I fix it? If need be I can stick the drive in another machine and change G: back to inactive if that will help. But I'm afraid to try anything right now because so far all I've managed to do is make it much worse! Sorry for the long winded post and thanks in advance for any insight into this dilemma, you guys rock!
Marking a partition active is same as marking it boot. You'll need to boot from recovery to cmd and bootrec /fixboot. If you've really hosed it you might need to get into some bcdedit action as well. Alternately you can try the automatic startup repair wizard thingy if you're feeling lucky.
Ok so I tossed the drive into my backup rig and set G: to inactive and C: to active. Re-installed the drive in my main rig and it boots and everything is fine (G: is showing up and all my programs seem to be working). Glad it was an easy fix and thanks for the advice you guys. Any clue what would cause it to change my drive letter to an asterisk in the first place? I'm now terrified to continue with my formatting of the thumb drive for fear it will demolish my partition!
What suggest you to do, is what I do. Set C:\ as primary and active (normal, default partition, which Windows setup does for you) Set your G:\ as Logical partition. This way there there is for sure no confusion. Just for organization purposes, next time (cause fixing it would mean re-installing every software, or hours in the registry fixing everything), change the drive letter from G:\ to D:\ so that things more more sense. C:\, D:\ are drives, E:\... and later are removable drive/optical drive. But that's me being crazy like that
Be careful when performing disk operation like format, especially if from cmd line. I agree with GB. Not sure why there is a huge space of letters between the 2. I always set partitions on same disk as adjacent letter, and work my way up alphabet from sata0 to sataX in order. I am that anal about it, but it helps a lot of minimizing mistakes and guess work. Then I know anything after 6/H for example is a removable device without having to think about it.
G: is set as primary and non-active and everything is working. Should I still set it to logical? I don't remember how the partition ended up as G:. I don't think I changed it purposefully. Could it be because the drive is installed with AHCI mode enabled thus causing windows to see it as "removable"? Thanks for chiming in goodbytes. You are awesome
Yea it should be logical. Technically it's fine what you did, but its easy to activate it by mistake, or also a partition manager software might get ideas and activate it. Putting it as logical will block that form happening, and avoiding what you experience form ever happening again. Also, partition manager software usually highlight logical partition in some fashion, so you are less likely to make a mistake in doing something later on. All you need is you need to do something with a partitioning software, and your tired, and didn't pay to much attention to create a disaster (personal experience :/) [/quote] I don't remember how the partition ended up as G:. I don't think I changed it purposefully. Could it be because the drive is installed with AHCI mode enabled thus causing windows to see it as "removable"?[/quote] My guess is that you made your partition during Windows setup or after. So the letter it will pick is after your optical drive(s), and removable drive(s) if any were plugged in at the time, and after any memory card reader. This is something you could have easily corrected in Windows Disk Management before you install your stuff. Well it's ok, just it looks strange that is all. You are very welcome. Anytime!
You can't set it to logical, you only need logical drives if you have more than three partitions on the same drive, it creates logical partitions within a primary partition.
Oh really? Disk 1, is my old HDD. Haven't had the time to transfer my stuff due to school. Will fix that after finals.
You generally have to set the partition as primary or logical as you create it but there is no need to if you only plan on having 2 or 3 partitions on the whole drive, basically both those logical drives are a partition within a partition, you might save a tiny amount of space if they were both primary.
Well I tried to change the partition to logical last night but couldn't due to most of my programs being installed and running off that partition, it was in use even after trying to kill some of my normal background applications. IF this happens again I will know immediately how to correct it so I guess I'll just leave it as is. I'm still curious how the drive letter got changed on the first place. I now know I didn't select the wrong drive for formatting. It was like 12% complete by the time I stopped it yet I haven't lost any info off my G: partition.
You can't be in Windows when doing this, beside it's dangerous. You need to boot from a disk that has a partition manager program on it, as you need to be outside of your OS.
Or I suppose I could throw the disk back in my backup rig and do it there Sometimes I'm a little slow...
It adds another step to avoid accidents. Like this, instead of accidentally picking "active" form a right-click menu, you need first to make it primary, and than make it active.
