DISKPART tried to create a Partition, has not worked

Bree said:

.........What make and model was the PC this disk was being used in? The reason I ask is that the 16MB 'unallocated' space suggests that this disk was originally partitioned with a UEFI/GPT layout, not a legacy MBR. That 'space' looks suspiciously like the Microsoft Reserved Partition. This Microsoft article explains the layout of a gpt disk........

Thank you for joining in @Bree.

I was very certain that the disk is an MBR disk. Only in the case of MBR disks, the first partition always starts dot on sector 2048. In the case of GPT drives the start point of the first partition will be way up further.

If you look at the found partitions Window of Partition Wizard posted by OP, the first FAT32 System Partition starts dot on LBA 2048. That was the deciding factor for me to mark it as an MBR drive.

But then again when I have a relook at the screenshot in OP's post # 27( after selecting the partitions) the 260MB FAT32 System Partition + 16MB Unallocated add up to 280MB ( more or less ) then it gives raise to the suspicion that it can be an MSR partition. In that case I can take that the first partition the OS partition starts at LBA 569276 which augurs well with GPT first partition start point.

Whatever, the OP should be able to access and recover the data if he writes it as an MBR drive. To make sure only I had asked him to double click on the partitions, explore and check that data is visible.

I do not think that it will be possible to recover the drive as a GPT drive. What I presume is that the OP's son had run diskpart clean which has completely wiped out the GPT structure.

We can attempt to recover the whole drive as a GPT drive using TestDisk but I do not know whether it will be successful . The one advantage will be that even if it cannot recover the disk as a GPT disk we can ask it to list the files in the found partitions and copy it. The many disks that we had recovered after an accidental diskpart clean were all MBR disks.

rebel1 said:

Hi Jumanji & Bree

Jumanji

'Double click on each selected partition to explore the content.' - all the Data is there.

Bree

What make and model was the PC this disk was being used in?

It's an Asus X553SA.

Is there any reason why the following wouldn't work?

The Most Effective Method for GUID Partition Table Recovery Is Here

rebel1 said:

Is there any reason why the following wouldn't work?

The Most Effective Method for GUID Partition Table Recovery Is Here

In the given example you can very clearly see that the disk is recognised as a GPT drive by PW (version 8.1.1) in the listing below the Disk Map. There is just one partition table info missing/corrupted showing the partition as unallocated. Run Partition Recovery >Quick scan - it will find the start and end points of that partition during the scan and then write the partition table in the appropriate sector. ( In a GPT disk the partition tables are written into sector2 to sector 33)

In your case all partitions have been lost. In the disk Map PW recognises it as an MBR disk. ( In later versions of PW the disk map itself can show whether the disk is an MBR disk or GPT disk) Status of all found partitions: Lost/deleted

That method does not apply to this case.

jumanji said:

In the given example you can very clearly see that the disk is recognised as a GPT drive by PW (version 8.1.1) in the listing below the Disk Map. There is just one partition table info missing/corrupted showing the partition as unallocated. Run Partition Recovery >Quick scan - it will find the start and end points of that partition during the scan and then write the partition table in the appropriate sector. ( In a GPT disk the partition tables are written into sector2 to sector 33)

In your case all partitions have been lost. In the disk Map PW recognises it as an MBR disk. ( In later versions of PW the disk map itself can show whether the disk is an MBR disk or GPT disk) Status of all found partitions: Lost/deleted

That method does not apply to this case.

Jumanji got it, Thanks.