Windows 7 Recovery Partition Is Missing or Lost? Fixed!

The issue: Windows 7 recovery partition missing

PC manufacturers like Dell, HP and ASUS now often create a recovery partition on their computer. The recovery partition allows users to restore computer to factory default settings in the event of system issues. However, some users fail to restore PC to original settings because the recovery partition is lost. Here is a real case about Windows 7 recovery partition missing:

“Hello, I have an Inspiron 15R N5110 that needs its Windows 7 OS reinstalled. I think it might have gotten bitten with a virus, but I'm not positive about this.

When I attempt to use the Recovery partition after hitting F8 at boot, it simply fails to do anything, returning back to the boot menu over and over. I guess it's possible that the virus destroyed the recovery partition as well. I don't have any OS CDs to restore from. Am I simply out of luck?”

What can you do when Windows 7 recovery partition is missing or lost? Please read on.

How to resolve Windows 7 recovery partition missing easily

Here I’m going to show you two effective solutions to the issue of Windows 7 recovery partition missing:

Solution 1: Recover missing Windows 7 recovery partition using CMD

Windows 7 recovery partition missing can be caused by the loss of drive letter. In this case, you can assign a drive letter to the recovery partition using CMD:

1. Boot your computer normally. Click “Start” and type “cmd” in the search box. Right click “cmd” and select “Run as administrator”.

2. Type diskpart and press Enter.

3. Type list volume and press Enter.

4. Type select volume # (ex: volume 6) and press Enter to select the recovery partition.

5. Type assign letter=# (ex: letter=G) and press Enter to assign an unused drive letter for the recovery partition.

6. Double type exit and press Enter to exit Diskpart and Command Prompt successively.

Solution 2: Recover lost Windows 7 recovery partition with a professional utility

If you have formatted or deleted the recovery partition accidentally, you can recover the lost partition with a professional partition recovery tool—AOMEI Partition Recovery tool.

Developed by the leading enterprise in the data security industry, it scans the hard disks for deleted partitions quickly using its advanced scanning methods. In addition, the data in it will keep intact as long as no data overwriting occurs.

Step 1. Install and run the AOMEI partition recovery tool > “Partition recovery wizard”  select the affected drive  “Next”.

Step 2. Choose a search method to scan and locate the deleted partitions. The Full Search takes more time to scan each sector of the disk.

Step 3. Select the deleted recovery partition >  “Proceed”.

You can then use the PC manufacturer’s recovery software to restore your computer. For example, you can go Start > All Programs > Dell DataSafe Local Backup in Dell computer and go Start > All Programs > Recovery Manager in HP computer. If you still can’t restore your computer successfully, you may use Windows installation media for clean install. However, it would cause total data loss. Backup important files before clean install if possible.

Backup the recovery partition in case of losing it

As you see, you may lose the recovery partition all of a sudden and it can be a tedious work to recover it. Is there a reliable way to keep it safe? Backup is the answer.

AOMEI Backupper Standard, the best free backup software, can help you with recovery partition backup.

• There are four types of backup available: System/Disk/Partition/File Backup, and Partition Backup is what you need here.
• It supports backing up to various locations, including local disk, external hard drive, USB flash drive, NAS device and network share.
• All Windows PC systems like Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista/XP are supported.

You are suggested backup the recovery partition to an external hard drive or a network location so that it won’t be affected by the computer status. Follow the steps thereinafter to backup the recovery partition to an external hard drive via AOMEI Backupper:

1. Connect an external drive to your computer. Download, install and launch AOMEI Backupper. Click Backup on the left pane and select Partition Backup.

2. Click Add Partition or Volume to select the recovery partition to be backed up. Then, click the second column to select the external hard drive to save the backup image file.

3. Click Start Backup to run the backup.

>> Options: you can enable email notification, choose the compression level for the backup image file and select intelligent sector backup or sector-by-sector backup.
>> Schedule: you can set the backup task to run automatically at fixed intervals.
>> Scheme: it will delete old image files automatically to save disk space for you. You need to upgrade to AOMEI Backupper Professional to enjoy this feature.

With a backup at hand, you can easily restore partition when you find Windows 7 recovery partition missing.

To sum up

You have learned two effective solutions to fix Windows 7 recovery partition missing. The methods can help you resolve the issue of Windows 10 recovery partition missing as well. To keep the recovery partition safe, you can backup it with AOMEI Backupper. Other than the backup & recovery feature, AOMEI Backupper can also create a recovery drive for you when Windows gives you an error message reading “A problem occurred while creating the recovery drive”. Why not give it a try right now!