MBR (Master Boot Record) is the first sector of a partitioned data storage device like hard disk. This structure holds the primary partition table and thus is important for the system to work properly. If MBR gets corrupted in any way, chances are that you may find your hard disk partitions inaccessible or unreadable. Windows cannot access the disk partitions without a valid partition table. In severe situations, you might need to recreate the corrupted partitions from scratch and apply several techniques (like reclaiming data from backup) for Partition Recovery.

Following is one real-time problem that has caused Windows partitions to become inaccessible. Let's say you run Windows 7 computer and attempt to download an application from a website. Contrary to your expectations, the download unexpectedly hangs and system freezes. You cannot open the 'Task Manager, and consequently, have to hard shutdown the computer.

After the above set of events, when you try to boot your computer, it takes more time than expected time. Later you observe that one or more of your data partitions are undetectable under Windows 7. Additionally, you might also experience some error messages suggesting to run 'Startup Recovery' during subsequent reboots.

Cause

One possible reasons for the above issue to take place is MBR corruption.

Methods to Solve

Before implementing the further suggested solutions, try resolving this issue by choosing 'Last Known Good Configuration' option. If this doesn't solve your problem, follow the below steps:

Insert the Windows 7 install CD and boot your computer Access it command prompt and execute fixmbr command Check if the issue still persists. If yes, perform clean Windows reinstall. In worst cases, you might need to repartition and reformat all the hard disk partitions

After reformatting the disk partitions, you need to restore the deleted data from a data backup. In case, no suitable data backup is available, the only solution is to use a Windows Partition Recovery utility that can scan the disk to retrieve lost data. These tools are competent to Recover Windows Partition data that is corrupted, or has been reformatted or deleted.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is one of the commonly used utilities that can recover lost Windows partitions using safe scanning. This Windows Partition Recovery tool is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2003, and 2000, and incorporates advanced features like, RAW file recovery, disk cloning, disk imaging, and others.

Daisy a student of Mass Communication doing research on Partition recovery software. He is also a freelancer for http://www.partitionrecovery-software.com/window-ntfs-fat-recovery.php