Partition table is an area where service information about logical disks located on the hard drive is written. If this information is incorrect or is simply lost, the operating system will not be able to find the data that is contained on the hard drive.
Instructions
Step 1
If your computer stops booting from the hard drive, remove the hard drive from it and connect it to another system unit as a slave. If Windows or Disk Manager does not see the logical drive on which you store information, and believes that the primary partition of your hard drive - the one on which the operating system is installed - is not formatted, most likely the partition table is corrupted.
One of the most popular tools for recovering a partition table is TestDisk.
Step 2
Run the program with testdisk / log / debug keys in order to create a log file and add debug information. From the keyboard, use the control keys (up and down arrows) to select the problem disk. Confirm your selection by pressing Enter.
Step 3
At the bottom of the menu, there is a tooltip that appears for each active item in the list. Choose the Analyze command. Press Enter to continue. The analysis progress is displayed in the indicator line.
Step 4
During this time, testdisk scans the leading sectors of the cylinders to find the file system headers. The program considers each heading to be the beginning of the corresponding section and adds it to the list of found data. Study this list carefully to make sure which of the partitions listed by the program are actually present on the disk. If any are missing, click the Quick Search button at the bottom of the screen to continue searching.
Step 5
After the scan is complete, testdisk prompts you to fix the partition data. From the list at the bottom of the screen, use the up and down arrow keys to select the desired value.
Hot keys and the actions they cause are also listed there.
Step 6
Hit Enter. After the values in the partition table have been corrected, the changes must be written to the hard disk. At the bottom of the menu, select Write and confirm your selection by pressing Enter.
