New laptop, HDD disappeared

[chasoh]

My laptop has 3 hard drives. 2 SSDs and a standard HD. However I've just noticed one of the drives has totally vanished on Explorer. Using Disk Management, I get the following view bit am unsure what to do next. This issue happened just a few days after my personal account on Windows disappeared and I was left auto-logged into Administrator account. I had the option to enter OOBE which I relunctantly chose as it was taking ages for Support team to get back to me.

Anyone have a clue as to where I go from here? Tempted to return to base as it's only 2 months old.

P.S. the 2 SSDs were only 500GB and the standard HD is 1TB. However there's this Disk 1 showing 2048GB which is weird and not expected.

Regards,

CJ

 

[BlessedSquirrel]

Use method 2 here using DiskPart:

How To Fix GPT Protective Partition Issue Without Data Loss?

Are you troubled by GPT protective partition issue? Keep calm. Here are solutions to help you get access to GPT protective partition and fix the issue without data loss.

www.diskgenius.com

There's nothing wrong with the laptop, it's a windows issue.

I would suggest a clean windows install if you've had problems with user accounts, there's obviously something up with that installation.

 

[ubuysa]

The reason you can't access the HDD is because it's formatted as a 'GPT Protective Partition' and that generally happens when there are drive errors. It can also happen if you use an old MBR disk partitioning tool on the drive.

Have you used any third party disk partitioning tools, or disk management tools in general? Have you used any Windows tune-up tools?

The link that @SpyderTracks gave you will allow you to remove it and access the drive again but you need to know why that happened. This part of your post is telling...

This issue happened just a few days after my personal account on Windows disappeared and I was left auto-logged into Administrator account. I had the option to enter OOBE which I relunctantly chose as it was taking ages for Support team to get back to me.

None of that should have happened and the 'protective partitioning' of your HDD may be a symptom of that. The problem could just as easily be software as hardware so a clean reinstall, deleting all partitions on the system drive (and ideally from the other drives too, so that you start with a clean system) is the first thing to do. Only if you start to see problems after that is it likely to be hardware.

 

[chasoh]

Thanks both for your feedback. @ubuysa I have not used any third-party tools that would affect the partitions or the hard drive in any way. Literally was doing some website-related work and wanted to move from downstairs to upstairs when the problems started. I agree a complete reinstall is probably the best course to resolve this. However, I'm not confident doing that myself. I Will have to see PCS Support can guide me through the process and in the meantime will back up all the content I have left on the laptop.

CJ

 

[ubuysa]

Thanks both for your feedback. @ubuysa I have not used any third-party tools that would affect the partitions or the hard drive in any way. Literally was doing some website-related work and wanted to move from downstairs to upstairs when the problems started. I agree a complete reinstall is probably the best course to resolve this. However, I'm not confident doing that myself. I Will have to see PCS Support can guide me through the process and in the meantime will back up all the content I have left on the laptop.

CJ

Installing Windows isn't rocket science and with a bit of care anyone can do it. You can't break the hardware during the install, the worst damage you can do can be fixed with a reinstall.