HOW TO MAKE MY C: DRIVE VISIBLE

Question

Hi Everyone.

I'm new to this forum and really hoping someone can help me.

My situation is as follows:

1. I had to do a Win10 Update on my office desktop computer.

2. After the update, I got the "Black Screen!" grrrr!

I've spent days on google and tried some of the suggestions I found but I still have no success.

3. I went and bought a USB enclosure, removed my desktop internal drive and put it in the USB case.

4. I have connected the USB case to my Laptop.

5. I can see my desktop drive.(NB: My desktop drive has 2x partitions.)

* First partition is for the OS/Apps etc. (C: Drive).

* The 2nd partition is for storage.

PROBLEM:

I can see the 2nd partition(storage), but can NOT see the "first" partition.(C: drive).

C: DRIVE:

How do I make the "first partition" visible?

AIM:

I need to save:

* My Documents,

* Windows Bookmarks,

* Desktop Documents etc,

* and I'm sure I'll see other stuff on my C: Drive, I need to save before I reinstall windows.

Please help. Thanking you in advance.

Lani.

speedstep · Answer

There is no such thing as making a partition visible aka Windows 10 is NOT DOS. You will need to remove the drive and put into enclosure. Then put a new blank drive in and reinstall windows. OR Get a USB 2.0 optical drive and a Live Linux boot DVD and turn secure boot OFF and F12 Boot the DVD live and save the files to a USB flash drive or external hard drive.

Saltgrass · Answer

If you look at the drive with Disk Management, what does it show where the C partition is supposed to be?

Is there any encryption on the drive?

Are there any other, smaller partitions on the drive?

You can also use a Admin Command prompt and use Diskpart to check the drive. If you aren't familiar, let us know.

kiwiboi · Answer

Hi Saltgrass,

thank you for your reply.

Q. 1: If you look at the drive with Disk Management, what does it show where the C partition is supposed to be?

Using the Disk Management, all that shows up in the 'enclosure case' is "1x partition" only. That's it. And it's the 2nd partition of that drive. I can not see the "C: drive" partition, that's definitely on that drive.

Q. 2: Is there any encryption on the drive?

There's no encryption.

Q. 3: Are there any other, smaller partitions on the drive?

No other partitions.

I could send you a screen shot?

Again, thank you Saltgrass.

Saltgrass · Answer

I don't think a screenshot would help right now since you can't see anything..

If I understand, the office system was working but after the update, it booted normally but showed a Black screen. The Black Screens are happening but I have not seen a definite cause or fix for that.

Perhaps, open an admin command prompt and start Diskpart. You will be looking for what partitions it shows on a particular drive. An OS drive normally has more partitions that just C and some data drive. The commands can use just the first three letters so lis is list and so on. Type exit to leave Diskpart when done.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.18362.1

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: FLAME_THROWER

DISKPART> lis dis

Disk ### Status         Size     Free     Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0    Online          953 GB 1024 KB        *
Disk 1    Online          953 GB 1024 KB        *

DISKPART> sel dis 1

Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> lis par

Partition ### Type              Size     Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1    Recovery           900 MB 1024 KB
Partition 2    System             100 MB   901 MB
Partition 3    Reserved            16 MB 1001 MB
Partition 4    Primary            952 GB 1017 MB

DISKPART> det dis

Samsung SSD 970 PRO 1TB
Disk ID: {FDA5CE5C-54EA-4A56-BA10-A9AACBAF853F}
Type : NVMe
Status : Online
Path : 0
Target : 0
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(1B00)#PCI(0000)#NVME(P00T00L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : Yes
Pagefile Disk : Yes
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : Yes
Clustered Disk : No

Volume ### Ltr Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 3         Windows RE   NTFS   Partition    900 MB Healthy
Volume 4     C   Win10 Pro    NTFS   Partition    952 GB Healthy    Boot
Volume 5         SYSTEM       FAT32 Partition    100 MB Healthy    System

kiwiboi · Answer

Hi speedstep. Firstly, thank you for your reply. I have bought a USB enclosure and have put my desktop drive into it. I have then connected that enclosure to my laptop. I know for certain that that desktop drive does have 2x partitions as I've mentioned above. When I use 'Disk Management' on my laptop, I see the following: 1. The Laptop HD 2. The USB enclosure HD, BUT, only the 2nd partition of that drive. IMPORTANT: All I want to do is 'SAVE' some very important business information: 1. My Documents. 2. Folders I have created on my Desktop, & all the information I have in those folders. 3. Not so important,all my 'Book Marks' If I can't see my 'C: Drive' from the USB enclosure, am I able to access it if I put it back into my Desktop computer. When its back in the Desktop computer, 'I CAN SEE' both partitions from the bios. Question: Am I able to copy files from the bios? I JUST WANT TO SAVE THOSE IMPORTANT FILES ON THE C: DRIVE!! Thank you speedstep.

kiwiboi · Answer

Hi Saltgrass.

Iv put my desktop drive back into the desktop computer.

I then followed all your 'commands' and it basically showed everything that you wrote, but of cause all my comps info.

I wanted to show you all the results but I don't know how to copy it from the bios?? So I'v taken photos of every step of your commands and created a short video and uploaded it to YouTube: https://youtu.be/I60hnBbJMpo

I really need to know how I can save important files on my C: Drive. Is it possible???

Thank you Saltgrass.

speedstep · Answer

The partition you cannot see is physically damaged and not mountable.

Drive letters are meaningless.

Recovery of data is possible but its not cheap.

Ontrack data recovery got 100 percent of the data back from a space shuttle hard drive that fell from the sky.

$350 for diag and $3650 for recovery of data.

https://www.ontrack.com/

https://www.ontrack.com/blog/2017/06/21/kroll-ontrack-space-shuttle-columbia/

Saltgrass · Answer

If you are in the command prompt, you should be able to see the drive using E: .. If you can, possibly you can copy off the files or you could use a Live version of Ubuntu you could boot to and use it to copy off the files.

You show C as a System Reserved partition, which normally does not have a drive letter and does contain the boot files.

You could use Diskpart to remove the letter on C and see if it would readjust and be bootable again. Anytime you make such changes, it can cause problems.

Diskpart

sel dis 0

lis par

sel par 1

det par

If it is showing a drive letter as C, try removing it.

Remove Letter=C

Remember, I cannot guarantee this will work without causing you problems. I do not know how the System Reserved partition was given a letter of C. I have seen them get letters such as Z but never C..

Make sure and reboot the system after to get the drive letters rearranged.

After you remove the C from the small partition, you could assign it to partition 2 with the commands below. You might even do this before you reboot..

sel par 2

Assign Letter=C

Keep in mind, in diskpart, you need to select the entity prior to performing functions on it. And make sure and verify you are looking at the correct drive and partition.

If you want to be really safe, it would be best to try to copy off any files prior to starting this process.

Windows General

HOW TO MAKE MY C: DRIVE VISIBLE

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