Summary: Have your hard drive space disappeared after shrinking the partition? Do you want to know why this happened? Then read this post to have a clear view on this topic.
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Do you know that hard drive manufacturers consider 1GB = 1000 MB while your operating system measures 1GB = 1024MB. That’s why a 1 TB hard drive shows only ~931 GB usable storage instead of 1000 GB. It does not mean that you have lost 69 GB space or partition. In your hard drive, you can create multiple partitions and volumes by shrinking the hard drive using Disk management tool or during Windows installation. But sometimes, things go wrong and your system may fail to allocate space while creating a new volume from unallocated hard drive partition. As a result, your hard drive space disappears after shrinking. Some factors that can possibly lead to hard drive space disappearance are:
Below we’ve explained three different solutions that you can try to restore missing hard drive space or partition issue.
Sometimes, corrupted or missing system files can cause hard drive partition or volume to disappear. The System File Checker (SFC) tool is a utility provided by Windows that is used to scan and repair missing or corrupted system files. You can run SFC scan on your system by following these steps:
If SFC scan finds any problem with system files, it can ask for Windows installation DVD or media to repair corrupt and damaged system files.
Chkdsk is an inbuilt disk error checking and repair utility in Windows. Chkdsk scans the hard drive partition for internal errors and fixes them simultaneously. The ‘Chkdsk’ utility repairs the file system metadata and logical file system errors that corrupts the hard drive partitions and make them disappear. To repair damaged hard drive partition with Chkdsk, follow these steps:
After disk checking process completes, restart the system and then try accessing your hard drive partition from File Explorer. If you are able to access the partition, copy data from it and format the partition via Disk Management tool.
Disk management is a tool that is used to create and manage hard drive partitions in Windows. You can use Disk management tool to restore the missing hard drive space by following these steps:
The Disk management tool creates a new partition with allocated disk space. Alternatively, users can choose an active partition and extend its volume by adding unallocated space. Follow these steps to extend a partition volume with unallocated space:
This adds the unallocated space to the active primary partition and recovers the missing hard drive space.
NOTE: When you delete a partition while shrinking or extending volume, it erases all data from that particular partition. You are advised to take a backup of important data before partition shrinking and before you begin fixing “Hard drive space disappeared after partition shrink” problem.
In case there is no backup or backup is not possible, the only way to recover lost data from deleted partition is by using a professional Data Recovery tool. You can use Stellar Data Recovery- Standard for Windows that can help you recover data from the lost, deleted, and corrupt partitions. This Data recovery tool can recover all types of files based on their unique signatures along with files like movies, compressed files, images, music, documents, etc. Using Stellar Data Recovery- Standard, you can also recover Raw Data and other files from even a formatted hard drive partition.
We’ve discussed reasons to why hard drive partition disappears after partition shrink and solutions to restore the missing hard drive space or partition. The solutions explained above can help you recover deleted partition in most cases. However, if you’ve deleted or formatted the partition during recovery or shrinking process, you can’t access the data as it turns inaccessible. A professional Data Recovery tool like Stellar Data Recovery- Standard can help you recover this lost data from the deleted and formatted partitions with ease.
Isha is a technical blogger and data recovery expert. She has experience in Windows data recovery. She writes about technical tips and tutorials.
Hi,
Thanks for sharing such an informative and amazing article.
Unallocated disk space is not showing after shrinking a drive
In such a case, use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free. The unallocated partition will be visible. Format it using the options to view it in File Explorer and Disk Management tool.
when i tried to shrink it said that it is not healty and i observed that the amount that i want to shrink is missing in my hard disk and an unallocated space is not there can you help what to do in this case
Hello Yaswanth,
Please tell about which command process have you applied to shrink the drive in order to assist you further. Thanks
Thanks for this amazing & informative article Isha. The basic root cause is beautifully explained with possible 5 factors. As per my experience file system errors & virus attack are more frequent ones.
Thanks Tom
i have the same problem regarding the missing partition, the problem is that it does not show in the device management in the unallocated. Can you help me pls
Hello Jester,
We recommend you to perform ‘Can’t find drive’ option in the Stellar Windows Data Recovery- Professional version software. Once the software finds the required volume/drive you need to start the scanning over the found volume. The file/folders would start listing once the scan proceeds. Check for the file preview if available.
I have used the software to recover files from a lost partition and it worked really well!
Thanks Whitney,
Thanks for using the software.
Can Stellar Data Recovery software provide free version of above mentioned software. Since I have only handful of images to recover?
Hello Nick,
Yes, you can download the Stellar Free Data Recovery from the below link to recover desired images.
Download Link: https://cloud.stellarinfo.com/StellarDataRecoveryFree-B.exe
In the absence of backup, Stellar Windows Data Recovery is a great tool to recover lost video files.
Hello Mike,
Many Thanks for the feedback.