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Messed up boot files (unbootable now)

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1974darrrnh

1974darrrnh

PCHF Member
Dec 20, 2023
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#1
Long story short, I was fiddling about trying to convert my disk from Legacy to UEFI and buggered it up.

All my files are still intact but it looks like I have deleted some important OS partitions and need to get them back.

The pictures below are my system right now, so I need to know what's missing and how to put them back

Tools at my disposal -

Win 11 iso
Hirens boot CD
Strelec Win PE
Ability to follow CMD commands.

I do NOT want to reinstall windows, especially as I know they are still on the drive. Just need to make it bootable.

Any help appreciated
 

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#2
G'Day and welcome to the forum.

first up, the C:\ drive is showing as RAW, so how have you determined your files are still intact?
if the drive really is RAW, it would need initialising, which will limit the ability to access your files and most likely force the use of grave robbing software like Disk Drill or Recuva.

if you haven't already, remove the drive, put it into an external enclosure or into another Pc and recover what files you can - if you still can!
 
#3
I've recovered all the RAW files from C: using Diskgenius. It took 26 hours 😉

I believe now the C: drive can be formatted back to NTFS without data loss? Obviously my computer is not bootable, so can I convert it with a windows 11 ISO, CMD & the Diskpart utility? Just asking because most of the videos on YouTube show converting a RAW to NTFS from WITHIN windows.
 
#4
1974darrrnh said:
I do NOT want to reinstall windows, especially as I know they are still on the drive. Just need to make it bootable.
Click to expand...
I doubt if you can.
Because you have changed the file system to RAW if you convert it back to NTFS it will still not give you the needed partitions.
You would have to.
1) Convert Raw to NTFS which involves formatting the drive.
2) Boot from an usb and repair the boot sector.
However, when you format you wipe out the windows files so there will be no windows files to boot from.
Which makes it a bit of a catch 22.

A lot of companies such as AOMEI, Easeus. say to use chkdsk.
You could try booting from the usb and go to the cmd prompt and running.
Type “chkdsk F:/f” in the window. You can replace F with your hard drive letter.

However as far as I know chkdsk will not recognize a raw drive.
It is wort a try.
May I ask why you do not want to reinstall widows?
 
#5
A Quick Format will only play with the boot record of the drive.
But it'll still do enough 'damage' that your data on the drive will only be recoverable by using some sort of grave robbing software.

What RAW files have you recovered?
Are we talking pictures saved in the RAW image format?
 
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