Entire Hard Drive Partition is missing, but the MBR

[Jesse M]

I am trying to reinstall windows 8, but when I do it says it can only find the MBR and that my disk isn't large enough. My hard drive is 500GB and the partition says it is 14 and it can't find any other partitions or the rest of the hard drive.

I can only boot into the system using the disk (which I can get into a cmd prompt).

WIth CMD on the windows 8 install disk, I ran diskpart and it only shows Disk 0 , Status: Online, Size 14 GB, Free 0B. Nothing else.

Any suggestions? I came across this because my computer wouldn't load anymore and just keep scanning for disks for days.



Thanks in advance!

 

[nlinecomputers]

Is the data on it important? Or can you blow the disk away?

 

[Jesse M]

I can blow the disk away if needed.

 

[nlinecomputers]

If you can nuke the disk then use a disk wipe program like DBAN to write zeros to the entire drive. That will clean any weirdness off it and allow you to properly format it.

 

[nlinecomputers]

If that don't work then you may have a faulty drive or controller. Test with appropriate diagnostic software.

 

[Jesse M]

Would you pull that drive and put it in a cradle or would you use a USB drive to run windows on to format that drive?

 

[nlinecomputers]

Neither. DBAN boots from a CD. You can do it in the system.

 

[Jesse M]

I can't get into the system, which is the main issue that it is in a WIndows Repair Loop that it won't get out of since it can't find the space.

Also, to make things MORE fun, the laptop doesn't have a CD rom So everything I have I have to boot from USB or my External Drive. Makes it more fun.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Yup to what nline says. Or put parted magic onto cd/usb and use their eraser tool to simply destroy the partition structure.

 

[Jesse M]

I'll look at it, is it bootable?

 

[nlinecomputers]

You may have to turn off secure boot in the bios to run these kind of tools.

 

[Jesse M]

Thanks for your help! I'll try this tomorrow and cross my fingers.

 

[nlinecomputers]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...escription=external+dvd+drive&N=-1&isNodeId=1

Every tech should have one.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

I need to grab one considering I can get them at microcenter usually open box for about 15. Not happening this week though, got a $1400 car repair to pay for. Car skipped time and messed up some valves, so getting a new cylinder head timing belt etc.

 

[NETWizz]

Might want to check your BIOS settings... Make sure it is on AHCI, SATA, whatever... If it is on some Legacy setting from decades ago where you specify the LBA size that might cause this.

I could see a partition being wrong, but the overall size of the disk should be reported properly.

 

[A/CPC]

If you can nuke the disk then use a disk wipe program like DBAN to write zeros to the entire drive. That will clean any weirdness off it and allow you to properly format it.

I've used dban on many occasions, but also diskpart's Clean All command...is there a reason to use one over the other...i.e., does dban do a more thorough job?

 

[Larry Sabo]

Sounds like the disk has firmware issues. If you slave it to another PC and run Disk mangement, what size drive does it report?

 

[MDD1963]

Any chance this drive might have been previously encrypted?