How To Recover Lost Partition on an External Hard Drive

Yes, the chances are high that you could recover a lost partition on an external hard drive at home, as long as it hasn’t been overwritten by new data on the drive. All you need is an external hard disk partition recovery tool or other similar software.

However, most recovery tools you can use at home are limited to helping you with slight damage or logical issues. Therefore, you could use these tools to recover lost partitions because of accidental deletion or disk corruption, for example.

On the other hand, if the partition on external hard drive were lost because you dropped your hard disk and it broke severely, you are probably needed to send it to a professional hard drive recovery service.

Let's find out how you can perform external hard drive partition recovery by yourself.

How To Safely Recover a Lost Partition on an External Hard Drive by Yourself

While it might seem frightening initially, restoring an external hard drive with a lost partition is usually a simple, straightforward process – though that can depend on the specific tool you use.

Still, it’s a quick, efficient process that carries little risk. Reliable external hard disk partition recovery tools won’t cause any further damage to your disk drive, so even in cases where they’re unable to retrieve your lost files, they won’t put any remaining data on the drive in harm’s way.

#1 Professional Partition Recovery Software - 3 Steps to Recover External Hard Drive Lost Partition

A reliable tool that can recover a lost partition on an external hard drive must be compatible with many different devices and work in all data loss situations. It needs high data recovery success rates, must be able to recover all the different file types you may have on your partitions, and above all else, must be easy to use.

Wondershare Recoverit checks all these boxes and more.

In the video tutorial, you can learn the steps on external hard drive partition recovery vividly and quickly.

Despite its advanced features, Recoverit is fully optimized and user-friendly, allowing you to recover lost partitions from your external hard drive in three easy steps:

1. Connect your external hard drive and launch Recoverit; then select the external hard drive under the External Drives section to get started.

   

2. The external hard disk partition recovery tool will start scanning the external hard drive to recover lost partition data in minutes.

   

3. Finally, you can preview all recoverable files on the scanning results. Select the files, folders, or the whole lost partition and retrieve them back by clicking the Recover button.

   

#2 Recover Lost Partition on External Hard Drive Using CMD

An alternative to partition recovery software like Wondershare Recoverit is the diskpart command on Windows computers. Keep in mind, diskpart only works in case of accidental deletion. If you’ve lost your partition because of software failures, data corruption, or other, you might not be able to use it to recover your files.

The process is a bit more complicated, but all you have to do is follow the instructions:

1. In the search bar by the Start button, type in cmd and press Enter;
2. Select Run as administrator on the Command Prompt app;

   

3. Type in diskpart, then press Enter;
4. Type in list disk, then press Enter;

   

5. Type in select disk * and press Enter (* refers to your hard disk drive number);
6. Type in list volume and press Enter;
7. Type in select volume * and press Enter (* refers to the number of the lost partition);
8. Type in assign letter * and press Enter (* refers to the drive letter).

Once this process is complete, you should be able to access the files that you’ve accidentally deleted from your disk partition. However, considering that it can be a bit complicated, it’s usually in your best interest to use reliable recovery tools designed to be easy to use.

Take Care of Your External Hard Drive to Prevent Future Partition Loss

If you want to avoid dealing with lost partitions on your external hard drive in the future, there are a few things you can do. You’ll need to learn to take good care of your external hard drives and minimize the risks of causing hardware and software damage.

What Causes Lost Partition on External Hard Drive?

Before we get into the measures you can take to prevent external hard drive partition loss, it’s a good idea to go over some of the most common causes of data loss.

We’ve mentioned a few scenarios already, so here’s a quick overview:

• Accidental deletion;
• Malware/virus;
• Cyberattack;
• Incorrect formatting;
• Device corruption;
• Unknown error code;
• Data transfer interruption;
• Connectivity issues;
• Improper file download.

Of course, there could be hundreds of different reasons why your partition has been lost. It could even be due to your hard disk having outdated drivers. Alternatively, it might only appear as if your partitions have been lost, but your PC cannot read them because of its own software issues.

Measures You Can Take to Prevent External Hard Drive Partition Loss

External hard drives will suffer some wear and tear as you continue to use them. Still, there are several steps you can take to ensure that they serve you well for years to come:

• Avoid physical damage at all costs;
• Store your external hard drive in a safe location, away from dirt, moisture, and extreme temperatures;
• Always "eject" your hard drive before disconnecting it;
• Make sure that all cable connections are made properly;
• Clean your external hard drive’s ports;
• Avoid creating too many partitions on a single drive;
• Never fill up the entirety of your hard drive’s storage space;
• Use antimalware software on all devices you’re connecting your drive to.

These are just some of the main measures you should always consider. While it seems as if the list is somewhat lengthy, it will always be in your best interest to follow it diligently.

Conclusion

A lost partition on an external hard drive can seem catastrophic, but you could easily get your essential files back in most instances. With reliable recovery tools, you can retrieve your lost files with reliable recovery tools in just a few easy steps.

If your partition has been lost due to physical damage, however, it’s in your best interest to contact professional data recovery service providers and see whether there’s anything they could do for you.