Windows 7 partition disappeared

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Windows 7 partition disappeared

last fall, my windows partition disappeared from the bootcamp menu. It might have been right after an update. I'm not sure. Now when I go to my disk utility, it shows a partition of free space and a partition of untitled space, as well as the the partition for the mac side. The Free Space partition is the size of the partition that I increased the size of my window's partition a while before this happened.

So, do I just need to go into the partition button for disk utility and change the format of the untitled from OS X (Extended Journaled) to MS-DOS (FAT) and rename the partition?

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3), MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010)

Posted on Feb 5, 2016 11:10 AM

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Answer 1

Loner T

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Feb 5, 2016 11:44 AM in response to Egbot

Do not modify any partitions using either BC Assistant or Disk Uitlity, unless you want to lose your data and files.

Can you post the output of the following OSX Terminal commands?

diskutil list

diskutil cs list

sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

The "sudo" commands will prompt for your password, and it will not be echoed back. You may also see a warning about improper use of "sudo" and potential data loss due to "abuse" of the command.

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Answer 2

Egbot Author

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Feb 8, 2016 8:45 AM in response to Loner T

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Answer 3

Loner T

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59,471 points

Feb 8, 2016 8:55 AM in response to Egbot

The gap between GPT3 and GPT4 is your Free Space. Can you post the output of

sudo dd if=/dev/rdisk0s4 count=1 2>/dev/null | hexdump -C

This will show us the partition header for the current GPT4 entry.

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Answer 4

Egbot Author

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Feb 8, 2016 10:47 AM in response to Loner T

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Answer 5

Loner T

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Feb 8, 2016 11:54 AM in response to Egbot

You will need Testdisk and GPT Fdisk. You have a lost NTFS header in the gap. Can you use El Capitan has deleted my bootcamp windows partition as a reference and start a Testdisk scan and run a Quick Search?

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Answer 6

Egbot Author

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Feb 8, 2016 1:26 PM in response to Loner T

I downloaded Testdisk, started down the list of instructions, wasn't sure if the size offset and the size offset numbers need to be different for me, especially when they didn't seem to do anything for me. This is as far as I have gotten so far:

when I didn't see anything pop up after the second Print command, I started wondering.

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Answer 7

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Feb 8, 2016 2:14 PM in response to Egbot

1. Can you post the screen with the output of the 'p' command showing a screen similar to the following?

2. Gdisk uses 8-sector alignment by default. You will need to use the Experts menu ('x') and use the alignment command ('l' or 'L') and set it to 1 sector and then go back to the main menu ('m') and then run the delete/new to recreate the BC partition header. It depends on what you get from step 1.

3. Your start/size values seem to be incorrect. Do not use values from the linked thread. They are unique to each installation. The start value should be higher than 647078087.

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