Recovery of Lost Windows partition After MBR Corruption

Image via CrunchBase

While booting the computer, you might encounter error messages like “Missing operating system”, “Error loading system”, and “Invalid partition table”. These messages are displayed when there is damage or corruption in the Master Boot Record (MBR). Located in the boot section of the hard drive, which is the first sector on the first platter, MBR contains the sequence of commands necessary to boot the operating system. It tells the computer’s BIOS (Basic Input Output System) the location of bootstrap code for the operating system. The MBR includes 4 partition tables of 16 bytes each. The partition table retains the information about size and location of partitions on hard disk. Anyways, MBR corruption leads to severe loss of your valuable data, which can be only recovered using an efficient third party partition recovery software.

Possible Causes:

Let us consider few prominent causes of MBR corruption that potentially result in partition loss. The corruption in the MBR can be caused because of the following factors:

· MBR damage due to partition table damageImage via Wikipedia
· Damage due to CIH virus
· Accidental deletion of partition
· EPBR corruption due to damage of Partition table
· Damage due to corruption of partition boot sector

At times, while booting the Operating System after hardware testing procedures in a MS Windows-based system, we find just blank screen with no messages. It signifies that the piece of code at the beginning of the MBR could not be executed properly, as a result even error messages could not be displayed. This is a very severe case of data loss as you are not at all able to communicate with the computer. It clearly demands to recover lost Windows partition and get back your inaccessible data.

Might be the Solutions

Image via WikipediaWe will now briefly discuss on different resolution methods for the damage of the MBR caused due to above discussed reasons.

MBR damage due to partition table damage
In this case, non of the partitions are detected and accessed by the Fdisk or the OS. The data can be recovered by patching the MBR partition table.

Damage due to CIH virus
In this case, the virus dumps random data in the first 2048 sectors of the hard disk. MBR which is located in the first sector of the hard disk also gets corrupted in this process as a result, non of the partition is detected and accessed by the OS. This type of damage requires expert's advice.

Accidental deletion of partition
In this case, a partition is deleted accidentally by the use of Fdisk or Windows Disk Administrator. The MBR and the partition table remain valid while the pointers to the partition are removed from the partition table thereby, the deleted partition is not detected. The corrupted data can be recovered by adding an entry for the deleted partition in the partition table.

EPBR corruption due to damage of Partition table
In this case, none of the partitions described in the corrupt EPBR can be accessed. The corrupted data can be recovered by rebuilding a valid logical partition chain.
Damage due to corruption of partition boot sector
In this case, the primary FAT32 partition is assigned a drive letter but cannot be accessed. The corrupted data can be recovered by repairing the partition boot sector.

The above mentioned procedures may help you resolve the issue with your corrupt MBR. In many cases, it may happen that after following the above steps you are still not able to interact with your computer, which compels you to go for Windows data recovery. There are many third-party Windows data recovery software available in the market. Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery software recovers the lost data in the case of MBR corruption.