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I have a 128 GB SSD (C:) and 1TB HDD (D:) in my computer. Windows 7 was installed onto SSD drive but HDD drive -formatted probably as NTFS- had the boot loader, so in order to fix that, I made the big mistake of using diskpart clean command on my 1TB hard disk drive.

In order to have the boot loader installed on C drive I used automatic system repair option of Windows 7 Recovery disk. It showed for very long time "attempting repair" message on the screen thus I had to reset the computer. This happened twice.

Then I checked the partitions to see what is wrong and realised with regret that "clean" command did not only clean boot loader info of the HDD partition, but also all partition information. :(

I immediately used Testdisk, first quick then deep scan (for Intel partition table type), but nothing could be found. I guess that during unfinished system repair processes, partition of drive D: was gone beyond recover ability of Testdisk.

PhotoRec can find lots of files on the disk, but they are not categorized and they are not named meaningfully. It is like a mess. However this shows that only the partition is gone, but files are still there.

Here are my questions:

  1. Is it possible to recover partition information even if it is overwritten by Windows System Repair? A tool or method other than TestDisk or a way to use in "expert mode", perhaps?
  2. Is it possible to have the partition back based on the data on the disk?

Update1: I tried Hiren's tools but they did not work.

Update2: I am trying TestDisk partition search using "Non partitioned media" option. It found following partition. I am not sure what to do. My partition was NTFS, not HFS. Now it is doing a deep search for the same partition tablo type, to be sure.

Testdisk Screenshot 1

I will update my question later according to its results.

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  • Are you sure you didn't do clean all? In any case, if testdisk found nothing, it is likely you'll need to restore from backup.
    – Paul
    Nov 17, 2014 at 0:22
  • No, not "clean all". Just "clean". Sadly I don't have a backup.
    – Ertugrul
    Nov 17, 2014 at 0:23
  • Weird, recovery tools should find something then. See what happens with Hiren.
    – Paul
    Nov 17, 2014 at 0:28
  • Hiren's tools did not work. However PhotoRec could find many files, but they are like a mess. It is practically impossible to go through tens of thousands of files to find meaningful data. However it shows that my files are still there. Isn't there any way to recreate the partition using file data on the disk? Is there an alternative to TestDisk or any other "expert" way to use that software (it has an Expert mode)?
    – Ertugrul
    Nov 17, 2014 at 19:01
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    Once you lost the partitions, you probably lost the MFT or FAT table depending on what you are using, which is where the filenames are stored. If you are mostly missing photos, then let photorec do its thing and see what you get. In future though, if you don't have a backup, the first thing to do in a situation like this is to take a bit level backup image of the disk. Some of your attempts to fix it (and Windows itself) may have made matters worse. A clone of the disk would let you try things out on the clone.
    – Paul
    Nov 17, 2014 at 22:23

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