Will diskpart clean destroy existing data?
I am downgrading a laptop from windows 8 to windows 7, but in order to do so I have to use diskpart clean. The disk has several partitions, namely a system partition and a data partition.
Will diskpart clean destroy the existing data in the data partition?
2 Answers
Will diskpart clean destroy the existing data in the data partition?
diskpart clean will remove any and all partition or volume formatting from the disk with focus.
diskpart clean all will zero the disk.
Further Reading
- An A-Z Index of the Windows CMD command line - An excellent reference for all things Windows cmd line related.
- diskpart - Disk Administration, Partition a disk.
No, diskpart clean won't destroy the data, it just deletes the partition table. You can recover the lost partitions using the excellent testdisk utility, by using testdisk's "Quick Scan" feature. Testdisk comes preinstalled on the GParted LiveCD
Also avoid the "Minitool" worthless recovery tool which has pages with harmful advice on how to destroy your partitions and then tries to sell you their scam recovery tool to get the partitions back.
To convert MBR partitions to GPT, use the gdisk tool which is also found on the GParted LiveCD.
