Fat32 And Ntfs Dynamic Volumes- Deletion And Recovery

The disk which is initialized for dynamic storage is termed as dynamic storage. There may be dynamic volumes like striped , spanned , mirrored , simple volumes and RAID-5 volumes.

In case of accidental deletion of any of these volumes (except RAID-5 and dynamic mirrored volume) , can be recovered if they aren't formatted the acquired space.

If the disk is formatted to FAT32 or NTFS, Windows allows to recover such deleted volumes by restoring backup boot sector. But if it is formatted after deleting the dynamic volume, you should opt should opt for a third party data recovery software to recover windows.

Something to be taken care of:

Actually , NTFS and FAT32 volumes keep a backup copy of their boot sectors. Whena dynamic volume is deleted, the disk management erases the volumes primary boot sector, at sector 0 and deletes the corresponding volume entry from its private region database.

But above all these things , the backup boot sector and the original data remains intact. Thus, you can restore the deleted boot sector from its backup and also the deleted FAT32 or NTFS dynamic volume. Since FAT16 doesnt maintain backup boot sector, you cannot recover the volume if deleted.

Please don't create any new volume before following steps to recover the deleted dynamic volume:

You need to first recreate a volume of exactly same size as of deleted one. Ensure that you dont format the volume.



Use Dskprobe.exe that allows you to restore backup boot sector. In NTFS, it is located at the end of volume, whereas in FAT32 it is place at sector-6 of volume.

Quit Dskprobe after it rewrites FAT32 or NTFS boot sector

To mount the volume for use, you should click Rescan Disks on Action menu of Disk Management


These are applicable only when you havent formatted it. If you have recreated a new volume then backup boot sector is not going help you .

Now in order to restore formatted volumes, you should use some good and reliable windows data recovery software. The commercial windows recovery utility follows a safe scanning algorithm to locate and restore missing information from a crashed disk.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is the most powerful application for complete recovery from FAT32, vFAT, NTFS and NTFS5 file system drives. It is a non-destructive Data Recovery Software with rich graphical interface. The application supports Windows 7 RC1, Vista, XP, 2003 and 2000. It offers advanced features like RAW File Recovery, Disk Imaging, Disk Cloning, Drive Status etc.