How to recover data/partition after power failure

Overview of data loss/partition loss after power failure

"The partition disappeared after the power cut, and it's now showing as 'Unallocated.'"

Power outages and voltage spikes are pretty common. When such power issues occur, you may find your data or partitions lost or inaccessible after the incident. Generally, a power outage/spike may lead to:

• You have lost files from a computer or external hard drive.
• A disk partition is unallocated.
• A disk partition is inaccessible: the partition still exists, but you can't open or access any of its files.

Fortunately, using the right tools can help you recover those files or partitions. Choose the appropriate solution for your situation to get your lost content back with ease.

How to recover data/partition after power outage

Please avoid saving any new files to the hard drive from which data has been lost, to prevent overwriting the data. Perform data/partition recovery as soon as possible.

Solution 1: Recover Lost Data

If you've lost some files on your computer or external storage device after a power outage, you can use free data recovery software like the Data Recovery Wizard to get them back. For a detailed guide, refer to the article on how to recover lost files in Windows.

Solution 2: Recover Lost Partition

If your partition disappears after power failure and becomes unallocated space, you can use a partition recovery tool - tools Partition Recovery to get your partition back along with the files on it. It helps recover lost partitions due to power failure, improper operation, MBR damage, bad sectors, repartitioning, etc.

Power restoration after outage:

Step 1: Run the Partition Recovery tool on your computer.

Select the hard drive or device where the lost partition was located, and click “Scan” to proceed.

Select the hard drive where you want to scan for lost partitions.

Step 2: Wait for the scan to complete.

Have the program scan the selected disk and find the lost partition.

Scanning the lost partition

Step 3: Preview and recover the lost partition(s)

Please double-click on the partition that is labeled as "Lost" and has a "Good" recoverability status.

Preview the contents of the lost partition. Click “OK,” and then click “Proceed” to start restoring the lost partition.

Step 4: Click on "Start Recovery" to finish the partition recovery process.

Note: If the utility reports conflicts, back up the partitions containing important data to an external hard drive before proceeding with the final step to restore the lost partition.

Solution 3: Recover Unreadable Partition

Unlike partition loss, an inaccessible partition will still show up on your computer after a power outage or a spike in voltage, but you won't be able to open it. If you double-click the partition, you may see a prompt that says "You need to format the disk in drive before you can use it."

If you come across a Windows prompt to format a disk, do not format the partition immediately. Formatting will remove all existing files from the partition. While data recovery after formatting is possible in most cases, it's always better to attempt data recovery before doing so. When your partition becomes inaccessible and needs formatting, it's likely that its file system has become RAW. You can successfully recover data from a RAW drive using a data recovery software.

In short, the steps to recover an inaccessible partition are:

Step 1. Recover data from the RAW partition to another location.

Step 2: Format the drive for use.

Step 3. Copy the recovered files back to the partition.

Bottom line

Aside from direct file loss, you might lose your work progress when a power outage happens, and you need to recover unsaved files in Windows. Besides, if you have external storage devices connected, issues like Seagate external hard drive not detected or USB not showing data can occur after power problems, leading to corruption. While we can't prevent power outages, we can develop a good habit of backing up important files regularly, which lessens the chance of total data loss.

We hope this guide will help you get some of it back.