Partition Is Missing in Windows 10? Easily Recover It! (Video)

✨How to Recover Missing Partition in Windows 10?

Partition missing in Windows 10

Is it possible to recover missing partitions in Windows 10?

Generally, the hard drive is logically divided into several parts called partitions. Although the partition is convenient for users to store system and personal data separately, sometimes, it will become inaccessible or not show up due to missing drive letter, accidental deletion, corruption, or other unknown reasons.

Fortunately, in some situations, it's possible to recover missing partition in Windows 10. The operating system just removes its information (eg: partition type, size, file system, and location) from the partition table when a partition gets lost. In Disk Management, the missing partition is often marked with an asterisk, Unallocated, or RAW.

Why is your partition missing in Windows 10?

What causes a lost partition? Before trying to recover the missing partition in Windows 10, it is important to find out the reasons for avoiding partition loss in the future. Windows 10 partitions might miss for a variety of reasons. Usually, the following factors can cause missing partitions.

• Users’ improper operation
• Partition table corruption
• Loss of the volume label, drive letter, or partition name
• Bad sectors or tracks
• Unexpectable Power failure
• Virus attacks and malware
• Repartition hard drive
• Incompatible file system

The top two ways for Windows 10 missing partition recovery

If your partition is missing in Windows 10, all the data in the partition will be deleted eventually. There are two methods you can try to recover the missing partitions in Windows 10. Using reliable partition recovery software, like AOMEI Partition Recovery Wizard, is certainly the easiest one.

Before starting, please be sure you don't do the following items. They are risk of overwritting your data on the disk, making data recovery more difficult.

• Make any new operations on the hard disk.
• Create a new partition on the unallocated space.
• Rebuild the partition table.
• Reformat the hard disk.

Method 1: Recover missing partitions with professional partition recovery software

If the partition is missing, a professional partition recovery tool can rescue your partition and data. The Partition Recovery wizard, one of the built-in features of AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, is created to recover deleted, lost, or missing partitions in Windows 10 or other operating systems.  

It provides two advanced scanning methods to thoroughly scan your disk and find all the recoverable partitions in simple steps. It applies to disk or partition formatted with FAT, NTFS, Ext2, Ext3, and Ext4 file systems.

• Fast Search: It's the recommended method. It will scan your disk and find out deleted or lost partition quickly. If it is not working, you still can try Full Search.
• Full Search: This method will scan every sector of the selected disk. Thus, it will be more time-consuming.

Step 1: Install and open AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. Choose Recover > Partition Recovery and select the disk including the missing partition. Click on “Next”.

Step 2: Select a search mode. It is recommended to select Fast Search the first time because it saves more time than Full Search. If it fails to find the missing partition, you can try Full Search again. Then, click on “Next”.

Step 3: The list of all missing or deleted partitions will be displayed. You can select the one you want to recover.

Step 4: After the partition recovery process completes, click “Finish” to exit after the message “congratulations” shows.

Then you can check whether the "my partition drive is missing" issue is fixed in Windows File Explorer. If the data in the missing partition hasn’t been covered or overwritten by new data, files and folders will be restored together with the partition. 

Method 2: Assign drive letter to missing partition in Windows 10

Sometimes, the partition is not missing but invisible due to lacking a drive letter. In Disk Management, the missing partition will be marked with an asterisk or Unallocated. Thus, you can choose to assign a new drive letter to missing partition in Windows 10 with Disk Management or CMD. 

#1: Missing partition in Windows 10 - Fix in Disk Management

Step 1: Press “Win + R” and type “diskmgmt.msc” in the Run window to open Disk Management and find the partition marked as Unallocated or with an asterisk. Remember the partition size.

Step 2: Right-click on the lost partition and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths".

Step 3: Click "Assign the following drive letter" and then "OK" to proceed.

#2: Partition disappeared in Windows 10 - Fix it with CMD

Step 1: Press “Win + R” and type “diskmgmt.msc” in the Run window to open Disk Management to find the missing partition. (If a partition is missing, the volume will be marked as Unallocated or with an asterisk. Remember the partition size.)

Step 2: Press “Win + R” and type “CMD” to Run CMD as administrator.

Step 3: Type "diskpart" in the CMD window and hit Enter.

Step 4: Type "list disk" and hit Enter. All disks in the computer will be on the list.

Step 5: Type "select disk # " and hit Enter (Replace # with the number of the hard disk that contains the missing partition).

Step 6: Type "list volume" and hit Enter. All volumes on the disk will be displayed.

Step 7: Type "select volume #" and hit Enter (replace # with the number of the missing partition).

Step 8: Type "assign letter=#" and hit Enter (Replace # with an available drive letter, from C to Z).

(Solved) My files missing after Windows 10 partition recovery 

If your files are not recovered completely, you still can try a reliable data recovery software like MyRecover to scan the recovered partition for data recovery, with a fast speed and high success rate.

• Its Quick Scan & Deep Scan will thoroughly scan your disk and find all the recoverable files, such as pictures, documents, videos, audio, etc.
• It supports 200+ file formats, such as, PNG/JPG/JPEG/GIF images, MP4/MOV/WMV videos, MP3/WMA audio, DOCX/XLSX/PPT/PDF documents, and more.
• It applies to all-inclusive data loss scenarios, such as lost or deleted partitions, formatted disks, recycle bin recovery, virus attacks, etc., and even system crashes.
• It is compatible with all the operating system, including Windows 7, 8/8.1, 10, 11, and Windows Server.

Now, download data recovery software -MyRecover to have a try! 

Step 1: After loading the partition in Windows 10, hover the mouse over it and click "Scan".

Step 2: It will run the Quick Scan & Deep Scan methods to scan every sector of your external disk and display all the recoverable files.

During the process, you can search the file name or filter your lost files by file type, date modified or size.

• Type: It will contain all the file types in the local drive, such as images, videos, documents, mails, webpage, compressed files, etc.
• Data Modified: It supports today, yesterday, last 7 days, last 30 days, and custom.
• Size: It allows you to filter file size from less than 128KB to 128KB ~1MB to 1MB ~ 512MB and above, or custom.

Step 3: Select your lost files and click the "Recover x files" button. You will then be asked to select a location to save the recovered files. Please select a new location to prevent data overwriting. 

You can also use this data recovery software to recover deleted files in Windows Server 2012, 2016, 2019, 2022, etc., and its R2 version.

More FAQs about partition recovery

Bottom line

Partition recovery isn’t too difficult to perform if you choose the right method. Lacking a drive letter and accidental deletion are the most common reasons causing partition missing. Besides, if your partition is missing due to other unknown reasons, AOMEI Partition Recovery Wizard would be your best choice to recover the missing partition.