Find dskprobe.exe for Server 2012 R2

data-recoverydiskmanagementpartitionwindows-server-2012-r2

As the question suggests, where can I find dskprobe.exe for Windows Server 2012 R2? I need dskprobe to recover a deleted partition and I can not find the application anywhere on my server and looking for it on the web seems to be a very hard task. Did they do away with it? It so, will old versions built for old OSs still work on 2012 R2?

This is how I'm trying to recover my partition that was deleted as cited on this microsoft article.

To Recover a Deleted NTFS Volume

  1. Re-create the exact same volume but choose not to format it. This may
    be difficult if you do not remember the exact size you had created
    originally, especially because the Disk Management snap-in tends to
    round partition sizes.

  2. Using Dskprobe.exe, recover the backup boot
    sector for the NTFS volume from the end of the volume. Because it is a
    dynamic volume you may need to use Dmdiag.exe to help find the backup
    boot sector, or search for it by using Dskprobe.exe (on the Tools
    menu, click Search Sectors).

  3. After rewriting the NTFS boot sector,
    quit Dskprobe.

  4. In Disk Management, click Rescan Disks on the Action
    menu. This should mount the volume for immediate use.

Best Answer

In order to get dskprobe.exe AKA Disk Probe by Microsoft, you need to get an old OS package and do a few manual things to make it available to you.

(1) Download the Windows XP SP2 Support Tools from here.

(2) Extract the contents of the EXE (WindowsXPKB838079SupportToolsENU. exe) to a location on "C:\" such as "C:\tools" or any place you might like.

(3) If you try to run support tools installer (suptools.msi) by double clicking on it you will receive an error (shown below).

enter image description here

(3a) Use the following command to expand the cab files for use...

C:\> cd c:\tools
C:\tools> expand support.cab C:\tools -F:DSK*

(4) Right click on dskprobe.exe and Run As Administrator. You should see Disk Probe show up as the image below...

enter image description here

Furthermore if you are seeking to do the same thing I'm trying to do and need help understanding how Disk Probe works (it's not exactly obvious), then check out this article and read the following area... Recovering Bootsectors of Primary Partitions.

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