Help... I've lost my book

I'm not sure how this has happened, but I noticed it just after a Windows update. (Not blaming update. just noticed it after)

A perfectly healthy 2TB partition has been running as F: Working files for a good 12 months, but then it suddenly disappeared, and instead of being F: Working Files, it became Unallocated with no drive letter.

I am at a breaking point after losing a very important file/folder. You see, over the last five years, due to Covid 19 Pandemic, I have been housebound, as I lost my home and business, and almost my life. I started writing a book, and I have a potential publisher, and this could be my break.
However, the drive that the book is on, you guessed it, was F: Working Files. I have tried almost every recovery program (portable) there is, and they all draw a blank; none of them find any data on the drive.

I can see that the drive is registering as FAT12, from it's orginal NTFS.

How can I recover my data... I won't list every program I have tried. The drive itself is okay, as the partition missing is in the middle of a three-partition 5TB 3.5 drive, and CrystalDiskInfo reports no faults, and the other partitions on either side are working as they should.

Is there any way I can repair the partition? I have tried a couple of suggestions, one of them being (TestDisk), which ran for three solid days, then reported no missing partitions

The drive shows up in Windows Disk Manager, as Unallocated with no drive letter.

If I just use Disk Management and run "New Simple Volume", will I be able to retrieve any of the data?

Thanks

Do not do anything yet, until we ask for more information, and/or give direction.

Trebo58 said:

I am at a breaking point after losing a very important file/folder

Click to expand...

Do you have a backup of the drive?

@Trebo58 ... I agree with the post above.. do not do a thing.. if you can, avoid even using the computer if you have a secondary computer or a tablet or a smartphone, while waiting for good steps to take.

I think this might be a case for @jumanji as i know he have some good howto's over at 10forums he might copy paste in here

Trebo58 said:

If I just use Disk Management and run "New Simple Volume", will I be able to retrieve any of the data?

Click to expand...

noooooooo do not under any circumstances create a new partition, as trim will screw you over if it is an SSD disk

Trebo58 said:

If I just use Disk Management and run "New Simple Volume", will I be able to retrieve any of the data?

Click to expand...

As everyone else has said - do absolutely nothing!!! Wait for @jumanji to join the thread. He is the master of all things 'data recovery'.

Thank you, Banjoman301, for responding. Sadly, no backup. I used to use a laptop, and everything was backed up on a NAS, but I moved to a desktop and larger drives. Marie SWE only have the desktop and an old Android phone, so I can't avoid using the desktop.

Trebo58 said:

Thank you, Banjoman301, for responding. Sadly, no backup. I used to use a laptop, and everything was backed up on a NAS, but I moved to a desktop and larger drives. Marie SWE only have the desktop and an old Android phone, so I can't avoid using the desktop.

Click to expand...

as long the drive shows as Unallocated with no drive letter, then the system and trim should not mess with the drive.
I have not used windows for 8 years to more advanced things.. so jumanji is, the Man, the Myth, the Legend here on 10/11forums.

The recovery tools I'm using is for Linux and also hardware related recovery tools as PC-3000 and DeepSpar.. so i cant help in this thread... I just wanted to stop you from making a BIG mistake by testing things by your own.

Let's get a picture of your drives...

Right-click on Start, and select Disk Management

Maximize the window when it opens.

Open Snip and Sketch and click on New.

When the "cross" (+ sign) appears, start in the extreme upper left-hand corner of the Disk Management window, hold down your left-click button, and drag the square all the way to the right, and down to the extreme lower right-hand corner.

Release the left-click button.

Your screen shot will pop up, with a toolbar at the top. Click on the "Save as" icon on the right-hand side of the toolbar. Hover your mouse to see a description of each icon.

When you click on the icon, you will get a "Save as" dialog box, and a default file name of Screenshot...with the date and time it was created as the rest of the file name.

On the left side of the "Save as" dialog box, use the scroll bar to locate "Desktop", select it, and then click Save.

The next step will be to post the Disk Management screen shot here in your thread...

Create a reply, and click the "Attach files" icon in the lower left.

Navigate to the Desktop, where you just saved the screen shot, and select the screen shot file.

Click on the file name to select it and click Open.

You will see a small version of the screen shot just below. There will be a gray "Insert..." button. Click on that.

Another series of gray buttons will display..."Thumbnail" and "Full Image".

For my example, I'll use Thumbnail



And this is the result.

You can then click "Post reply".

I'm sorry you lost all your hard work. I wrote several books and know how many hours go into writing one. A lot of frustration, too.. It was always my practice to keep no less than 6 copies of any manuscript; system drive, secondary drive, 2 flash drives, and 2 different cloud providers. I even kept multiple images of the system and secondary drives and kept one offsite just in case my house burned down. I took no chances of losing my hard work.

Those days may be gone by but I still take no chances and image my data regularly. Most folks here have some kind of backup plan in place.
Best of luck to you. Hopefully someone has a solution for you.

Post a screenshot of Disk Management.

Like all the comments - do nothing until this Jumanji guy has his say.
Don't know for sure if Macrium (or alternatives) can copy unallocated partitions, but if it can, I'd boot off a recovery disk and copy it just to be safe, then play as needed with the original partition.
There are other non-altering recovery techniques but let's leave them to last.

This is a good article on what to do and not do:

a live Linux USB would be able to see if the data is on the drive
the live Linux USB does not install anything on to the system

it would be a way to transfer the data, if it is accessible without interfering with any of the drives or operating system installed.
but i am reluctant to recommend creating your own live Linux USB on your system as that would involve using your system to create the live Linux USB.

best of luck Steve ..

@Trebo58

You didn't mention what program you are using to create your book, but many like Word and LibreOffice Writer will create a backup of your document on the C: drive, usually every 10 minutes (if "Always create backup copy" is turned on)...even if you saved the main document on another drive (such as F:)

So you might do a search on C: for a backup file.

I usually see @jumanji on here around 8pm New York time.

@Trebo58 bo58
I would send the disk to a professional data recovery service. The more you touch its contents the less data will be recoverable.