Want to know how to recover unallocated partition with data on it? Here, two solutions are listed. Try to use these methods to recover data from unallocated hard drive space with the professional data recovery software which would not bring any damage to the original data.

Hard Drive Suddenly Became "Unallocated"...

Hard drive/external hard drive/USB drive becomes unallocated? Have you ever encountered this issue? What should you do if the unallocated partition contains some important data? Don't worry. This post will show you how to effectively recover unallocated partition with data on it.

What Does It Mean When a Hard Drive Is Unallocated?

First, let's see a true example:

I accidentally deleted a partition that was not to be deleted when re-installing Windows and as soon as realized it, I canceled the setup but the partitions are gone, now the disk is unallocated and I need to recover the lost partition. Can someone please help me to recover it? All of my data is in that partition. Please, I need help.

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Unallocated space, sometimes called free space, is a logical space on a hard drive that the operating system , like Windows, can write to. You cannot use this space without allocation. This means that no programs can be written in unallocated space.

To make use of unallocated space, you need to either create a new partition using this space or expand an existing partition. However, what if this unallocated space contains massive important files? In this case, you should try other ways to fix unallocated hard drive space.

Why Does Hard Drive/External Hard Drive/USB Flash Drive Become Unallocated?

What makes your drive becomes unallocated? Many reasons can cause unallocated hard drives.

Tip: If your hard drive becomes unallocated, you should stop writing new data to the drive. Meanwhile, please use a professional recovery tool to start the hard drive data recovery immediately. Otherwise, the original data on the unallocated space will be overwritten .

Now, it's time to learn how to fix unallocated hard drives without losing data in Windows 11/10/8/7. In the following part, there are 2 excellent ways for you to get unallocated hard disk space back.

Way 1: Fix Unallocated Hard Drive With MiniTool Power Data Recovery

To fix unallocated hard drive space without losing data, you should recover data from unallocated space first of all. Then you can create a new partition on this unallocated space or add the unallocated space to an existing partition.

Move 1: Recover Data From Unallocated Hard Drive Space in Windows 11/10/8/7

When it comes to unallocated hard drive data recovery, MiniTool Power Data Recovery, green and professional data recovery software, proves to be an excellent choice.

With this all-in-one software, you can easily and quickly recover lost data from unallocated hard drive space without damaging the original data because of its high recovery rate, easy-of-use, and high security.

And, it has good compatibility. Various common file systems (like FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, HFS+, and ntfs ) and operating systems (like Windows Server, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows 11, and so on) are fully compatible with MiniTool Power Data Recovery.

And this professional data recovery software allows you to recover files from not only hard disks but also flash drives, memory cards, etc.

To recover unallocated partition data, you can get this software. Here you can try the Free Edition (Free to scan and show the scanning result, 1GB data recovery allowed) to check whether it can help to find the files you need after scanning the unallocated hard disk space. If yes, to complete the recovery operation, just upgrade to the Personal Edition .

Free Download

Now, how do you perform unallocated hard drive data recovery with MiniTool Power Data Recovery?

Step 1: Launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery to get its main interface, and then you can see 2 different modules.

  • Logical Drives : Show all partitions on this PC, including all partitions on the local disk, external hard disk, and removable disk drive. Lost partitions and unallocated space are also included.
  • Devices : In this section, you can select the whole device to scan if you want.

show Logical Drives and Devices

Before scanning your drives, if you only want to recover some specified file types, you can click Settings to select specific file types, like documents and pictures. Then click OK to save your settings.

select specific file types

Now you can go to the Devices section and click Scan to scan the whole disk. Or you can select the unallocated partition under the Logical Drives section to scan.

select the whole disk to scan

Tip: If the device is not found on the list, please click the Refresh button to make the device visible in the list. Here, I guess you might be interested in this post: Solved - External Hard Drive Not Recognized .