Unallocated space has data on it.

[DBoydNL]

I have a USB 3.0 750 GB HD attached to a USB3.0 powered hub and to my computer.
I am using Paragon Partition Magic 14 free edition.
I had a C, E and F partition on the HDD (it used to be my laptop’s HDD).
I cleared the C partition, and added the restore partitions to that an turned it into Unallocated space. Then I portioned it, destroying all the data, giving it drive letter I.
The E partition contained all my Pictures and Video’s; it was 290 GB in size.
The I partition was around 200 GB.
I wanted to combine the I and and the E partition, to create a larger E partition for my Pics and Vids.
I used Express Resizer to increase the size of the E partition to include all (well, it wouldn’t take 90 MB at the front) of the I partition, making it 599.9 GB in size.
At about 54% I received an I/O error on the process for the HDD.
Retry didn’t work.
Ignore didn’t work (just kept showing the same error dialog screen).
Ignore all removed the dialog screen, zoomed through the remaining process and presented me with 599.9 GB of unallocated space. Actually I have a small unidentified amount of space before the 599.9 GB of unallocated space and the F partition behind that is now listed as an unformatted local disk.paragon.jpg
I have not closed down the program, not performed any other functions with the program, have not even disconnected the USB HDD from the hub.
Have I lost all my pictures and video’s? I do not have a back up, this WAS going to be my backup.
Can I get my data back (from the original E partition)?
If so, what procedure or program do you recommend?

David

[John Paragon]

I have a USB 3.0 750 GB HD attached to a USB3.0 powered hub and to my computer.
I am using Paragon Partition Magic 14 free edition.
I had a C, E and F partition on the HDD (it used to be my laptop’s HDD).
I cleared the C partition, and added the restore partitions to that an turned it into Unallocated space. Then I portioned it, destroying all the data, giving it drive letter I.
The E partition contained all my Pictures and Video’s; it was 290 GB in size.
The I partition was around 200 GB.
I wanted to combine the I and and the E partition, to create a larger E partition for my Pics and Vids.
I used Express Resizer to increase the size of the E partition to include all (well, it wouldn’t take 90 MB at the front) of the I partition, making it 599.9 GB in size.
At about 54% I received an I/O error on the process for the HDD.
Retry didn’t work.
Ignore didn’t work (just kept showing the same error dialog screen).
Ignore all removed the dialog screen, zoomed through the remaining process and presented me with 599.9 GB of unallocated space. Actually I have a small unidentified amount of space before the 599.9 GB of unallocated space and the F partition behind that is now listed as an unformatted local disk.paragon.jpg
I have not closed down the program, not performed any other functions with the program, have not even disconnected the USB HDD from the hub.
Have I lost all my pictures and video’s? I do not have a back up, this WAS going to be my backup.
Can I get my data back (from the original E partition)?
If so, what procedure or program do you recommend?

David

Hi! Looks like you have errors on your disk, use CHKDSK (https://kb.paragon-software.com/article/189) to check it.

[DBoydNL]

Hi John,

I had thought of using Chkdsk, but was not sure if that was safe to do, given the fact that this resized (attempted) partition contains data I do not want to loose (no backup). Thanks for "giving me permission" to use it.
I wish I could report that it has worked, which obviously I had hoped it would. It went through its thing, taking its sweat old time (no problem). But when it was done, Windows Explorer still shows it as drive L / 1.78 MB of 97.9 available (it is supposed to be 599 GB), and presumably because of the limited space left on it, it is colored red. When I double click on it (in Explorer) the screen changes and tells me "This folder is empty".

I unplugged the USB drive, waited 15 seconds and plugged it back in. It reappeared in Explorer with exactly the same results.
I started Partition Manager. I told me there were unfinished processes, which should now be completed in order to avoid data loss. Well now, that sounds promising. I clicked OK and is started working on "moving volume". I am awaiting the outcome.

BTW, I was unhappy with the article you sent me to, but there seems to be no place to give feedback. Since I am working with a drive that contains data I need to rescue, I carefully followed the instruction given (even though I was sure they were incomplete): Type in the command and drive letter, which in our case is "L." Yes the correct syntax is given later, and I found that "L:", but the cautious reader is going to do exactly what the instructions say, and type in first "L." (since period is incorrecty/unclearly INSIDE the quotes" and then "L", neither of which work, since a colon is required.
Also, under the Stages of CHKDSK" there are a bunch of missing pictures.
This seems kind of sloppy (additionally one cannot copy & paste from this webpage - which is just silly).

[DBoydNL]

UPDATE (can't see any way to edit my previous post to include this or correct the "I told..." to "It told...").

It took Partition Manager over 2 hours to complete the tasks. After it was done, there was an E (299 GB) partition containing all my ("lost") data, and the (previously unaffected) partition with backed up data on it, plus a bunch of Unallocated space (300 GB). Phew!

So now I will first back up the data on the E Picture and Video partition, then resize it to include all of the unallocated space (may have to create a partition of that first) and then it will hopefully be as it should be...

Any thoughts on what the initial I/O error was or what caused it (I understand that it is an Input Output error, but that's it)?

Thanks again for your help.

David

[shepherd]

1. Sorry for the inconvenience. I've corrected https://kb.paragon-software.com/article/189. Thanks for your hint.

2. Correcting your own posting is possible within 30 minutes. We have restricted this policy because we had members who deleted their postings after they got their solution. This is not what we intend with our forum. Solutions should be available for anybody. The communication should be preserved "as is" and not be modified afterwards.