Recovering Your Data - Lost Partitions

Introduction

Have you ever experienced  a situation where you placed your flash drive into the computer, the computer recognized it but you were unable to access the information?  No matter how much you tried, you got the message that you had to format your drive.  It happened to me.  I visited the United States for the first and only time and had a wonderful experience.  However, I placed all my pictures and videos on my flash drive and when I tried to access them, to my horror, I was greeted with a similar message.  Thankfully I discovered a way that allowed me to get a full recovery of all my data.


Lets Talk Partitions

A partition  is a dividing structure like a wall or curtain in a room that separates one room from another. For a storage device in computing, a partition can be conceptualized as an area on the drive that is set aside for saving data.  In Windows systems, the hard drive must be partitioned before the operating system like Windows 7 can be placed onto it.  Windows installation CD allows up to four partitions to be placed on the same hard drive.  This means I can place, for example, Windows 7, Vista, Xp and  2000 on the same hard drive but on four different partitions or compartments of the drive.  And when the system is switched on,  I will get the opportunity to choose which of the four installation of  Windows I would like to use.  Usually the primary partition is called "C" and the other partitions, if any, will be given available letters such as "D", "E" and so on.  So we hear of  "the C drive" which means partition C.   Now you have a pretty good understanding of partitions.

Recovering Lost Partitions

In my case, something went terribly wrong with the partition on my flash drive so windows could not open it.  Fortunately  I discovered a program "Find and Mount" that was able to locate my  partition.  "Find and Mount" will locate the partition(s) on the drive and provide you with the opportunity to mount them using a drive letter.  Then Windows will open the mounted drive like any other regular drive.  You will see all the information on the flash drive but it will be "read only" meaning that you cannot alter it.  But  you will be able to save all your information to another location.  In this way I was able to recover all my irreplaceable memories some of which I had even forgotten. "Find and mount" works not only on flash drives but on hard drives as well.  There is a free version and a paid version.   Both have the same options only that the paid version works faster.  Nevertheless, for domestic use, the free version is all that you need.  So I hope you have read this before throwing away your flash drive or hard drive that refused to open.  Your partitions may still be accessible.  You might very well be able to get it back.