Merged partitions and lost data

In the past, I used partition magic to partition my HDDs, because I was set on having a dual boot. That was a looong time ago, and the 7GB partition hosting W2K has been formatted and used to store data.

So today I finally got my act together and used Partition Magic 8 to, once again, merge those two partitions: drive E was expanded to include drive F with the help of the merging partitions wizard. The application told me to provide a name for an extra folder, where all the data from the to-be-deleted partition was to be stored. Foolish of me to think Partition Magic was doing my backup for me! :cry

Wizard tells me to reboot, which I do. The blue screen runs with a whole lot of information which I barely follow from the couch, and then I get a message for error 1520. It tells me to press any key to continue, and so I did. There was some issue with drive-letters when XP booted, and the system asked to re-start again. Clicked "OK".

Result? When I open "my computer" the old drive F still appears. But when I double-click the icon, I get an error message saying the drive cannot be accessed (OK, so it shows, but it doesn't exist and can't be accessed... I can live with that).

Then I open Drive E, and go to the folder I created for storing the files that used to be in drive F. Same error message: the folder is there, but it cannot be accessed.

PLEEAAASE tell me I can recover my data??? :cry

 

Maybe it's an ownership issue, try this, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

Little info on "Error 1520" http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPOR...est.nsf&view=92374e26e66cc3a188256e97004b8ff5

Steve

 

thanks, but no... I had tried that, but I don't get the "security" tab under the folder properties.

I ran chkdsk /f, not without issues, because it said it needed to dismount the volume and make all volume handles inaccessible. I said yes, and it performed the chkdsk.

it fixed errors in index $dh on file (???)
it recgonized only about 7gb on the drive... still missing 193 gb

I don't know if this is connected or not, but I am finding it very difficult to surf the web now, because whenever I click on a link or type in a URL I get a "page not found" message. It systematically loads when I hit "reload".

 

do you have/know the hirens boot cd? i you have or download one of these there a lot of helpfull programs on that to restore lost data and partitions.

And i stopped using partition magic for almost the same reason. For me the program merged two partition because it said they overlapped eachother resulting in lost data. I know only using acronis partition maker wich is working very well to me.

And rest assured normally as long as you do not format multiple times the HDD data can be restored. maybe not to a full 100% but 80 or 90 should not be so difficult.

 

I do have hiren's. but not being sure which app to use, I am somewhat scared of running anything... what do you suggest?

 

I tried Active Partition Recovery 3.0 and Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro 6.10. Both see the directory structure and the files in drive F, so I know they're still there... but I simply do't know how to recover them, or copy them elsewhere...

incidentally, and this may be completely disconnected, ever since I tried merging the drives, it takes windows for ever to open the My PC window (perhaps because it searches for the data from drive F which is no longer readable?) and I find that I need to load all internet sites twice before I can see them. The first time around, I always get a "can't access the page" message.

 

If taking ownership works it will be your simplest solution. Are you sure you tried these steps?

 

I'm actually running WinXP Pro SP2 I went through all the steps, including deselecting simple sharing, but I simply don't get the security tab ("Protezione" in Italian)

This is what comes up when I access the drive's properties
http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/7328/immaginecv3.jpg

 

Try Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management; In the left pane select Disk Management

What size does Windows show for E: and also F: partition? Is F: listed as unformatted?

 

mmhmmm... not sure... what do you gather?

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/1810/immagineiw9.jpg

 

use get data back

 

:celebrate:celebrate
HOORAY!!!
:dancer:hyper

GetDataBack worked wonders! easy to use, and very effective. I managed to acces the data and copy it to drive H. So now that it was all safe and sound, I went ahead with re-installing XP which was my objective in the first place.

Big, big thanks to grayfox and sach2! :drool

The story doesn't end here, though... :banghead but I think the protocol requires me to open a new thread for the issues I'm encountering now, so please follow me to the next chapter