A really damaged partition :(...

[SkyDiver]

This morning I tried to installed a 40GB IDE disk on top of the
already installed 150GB SATA one (partitioned - C:\ 30GB and D:\
120GB).

When I restarted, the system did not behave nicely.. Windows Explorer
wouldn't launch, etc. I shut down, jumpered the 40GB drive as a slave
and restarted.
This time the system behaved better, but the terrible damage was
already done - C: drive is alive and kicking, OK, but my D: partition
has somehow managed to split into 2 individual partitions (!!) one in
the size of 8GB and the other one 111GB, which is marked as
"unallocated data"...

I tried both Active Partition Recovery and Acronics Disk Director, but
both of them fail to recover anything from the 111GB partition..

Is my data gone?? we're talking about 7 last months of unbacked up
photos and documents..

... HELP!

 

[R. McCarty]

Sounds like a lettering collision. The bad part of adding a PATA
drive to a SATA system is how it changes drive lettering. ( and
can also re-assign the boot device. ) Before you attempted any
recovery did you remove the PATA-IDE drive from the PC ?
Instead of data recovery you should be investigating Partition
Table recovery.

Seven months without a backup - If you get out of this hole go
buy Acronis True Image and start a more frequent backup routine.

 

[db.·.. >]

you need to assign
the letter c back to
the original harddisk
if you want the o.s.
on it to launch.

otherwise, you would
have to reinstall
windows on the
sata's partition c
to launch the o.s.
from it and if your
motherboard permits
you to boot from
the sata.

 

[Calab]

This morning I tried to installed a 40GB IDE disk on top of the
already installed 150GB SATA one (partitioned - C:\ 30GB and D:\
120GB).

This time the system behaved better, but the terrible damage was
already done - C: drive is alive and kicking, OK, but my D: partition
has somehow managed to split into 2 individual partitions (!!) one in
the size of 8GB and the other one 111GB, which is marked as
"unallocated data"...

What happens when you disconnect the new 40gig drive?

 

[PD43]

Is my data gone?? we're talking about 7 last months of unbacked up
photos and documents..

That's a bigger problem than the one that brought you here.

It's time to start thinking about a backup strategy.

 

[SkyDiver]

Yes, I removed the PATA-IDE drive before going any further..
I tried Partition Magic which claimed that my partition reports an
invalid size, it also asked if I'd like to repair this.
All I'm trying to do at this point is to raw-copy the entire 160GB
drive onto my 500GB drive and maybe let PM repair the duplicate, but I
can't seem to execute this task since PM shouts all sorts of errors..
everytime I think I overcome an error - another one pops up.

 

[SkyDiver]

My C: partition is in tact and my OS is working.
This is not the issue.

 

[SkyDiver]

Yeah.. thanks for the heads up.

That's a bigger problem than the one that brought you here.

It's time to start thinking about a backup strategy.

 

[SkyDiver]

Yeah.. thanks for the heads up.

That's a bigger problem than the one that brought you here.

It's time to start thinking about a backup strategy.

 

[R. McCarty]

Partition Magic 8.x ? - If so. I wouldn't have allowed PQMagic to
do partition table changes. In an earlier post you mentioned that
you used Acronis Disk Mgmt, was that correct and did you try it
to recover the original D: volume ?
Not sure what to advise, with this kind of issue it's really important
to go very slow and methodically as you can easily make it worse
doing the wrong type approaches to fix it.

 

[SkyDiver]

I didn't let PQMagic touch the original drive.
What I would really like is to clone the damaged partitions -verbatim-
(via some raw copy method) onto my 500GB mybook hard drive. Then I
would like to try working with PQMagic on the cloned drive.
All my data is on the 111GB of unallocated space, but I couldn't yet
duplicated it to a different drive.. Not with acronis as well.

 

[Bill in Co.]

Partition Magic 8.x ? - If so. I wouldn't have allowed PQMagic to
do partition table changes. In an earlier post you mentioned that
you used Acronis Disk Mgmt, was that correct and did you try it
to recover the original D: volume ?
Not sure what to advise, with this kind of issue it's really important
to go very slow and methodically as you can easily make it worse
doing the wrong type approaches to fix it.

I'd generally agree with that too, as it's like walking on a razor's edge.
But at this point, if he doesn't allow PM (or some other similar program) to
try and repair the Partition Table, and if he can't raw copy it first to a
backup, what else are his options.

 

[SkyDiver]

I managed to duplicate the entire hard disk onto my 500GB one.
The damaged 120GB partition had split up to 8GB of a logical partition
tagged with a RAW file system and the rest is tagged as unallocated
space..
I tried to go further with it and resize the "RAW" 8GB patition, but I
can't seem to do it.
PQMagic won't even launch until it fixes all the length mismatches,
and then when it does launch, it won't allow me to resize that 8GB
partition anyway..

Yet again - I'm stuck..

 

[R. McCarty]

It is very aggravating when you have what you think are the tools
( & experience ) and can't get 2+2 to equal 4. Over the years I've
seen a lot of sunrises while banging away on these type of innocent
but deadly system changes.

Anyway Partition Magic has helped me with a lot of recovery work
for me. However now with Vista and a newer NTFS I've left it for
Acronis Disk Management. It doesn't help that Symantec bought it
from PowerQuest and seems to have abandoned it.

I do have a copy of Active Partition Recovery and that's also done
a few system resurrections but I seem to remember you said you
had tried that and it didn't work out for you.

Not sure what to suggest, maybe another responder has an idea or
alternate program to try.

 

[SkyDiver]

Yeah.. well, thanks anyway.
I've spent 4 sunrises on this whole shebang already..

I read that the MBR has a copy somewhere towards the end of the
partition, so my current goal is to try and find it on the unallocated
space section.
So far I found a software called TestDisk, which scans the hard drive
for MBR remnants.
I'm still fiddling with that one..

 

[SkyDiver]

EPILOG!!
-------------

Following is a summary of my insights from the past 5(!) days of
trying to resurrect my hard disk.

My problem began when I attached a PATA-IDE hard disk side-by-side
with a SATA disk.
The result was that my 120GB data partition was split into a small 8GB
one and the rest got lost and appeared as "unallocated space".

I guess that it had also something to do with the fact that attaching
extra disks drives causes confusion in drive letters (still, breaking
my partition like that was plain nasty).
To my fortune, my C: was not affected at all (I later on read that
Primary partitions drive letters are allocated first, then extended
partitions receive drive letters and then it goes to other peripherals
suck as disk-on-key, card readers, etc).

Before going any further, I used EASEUS's Disk Copy (www.easeus.com)
in order to duplicate the faulty hard disk into a different one (needs
to be a different -physical- drive).
This way I was able to safely perform several tests and to try
different software and approaches to recover my data partition.

When I launched Partition Magic offered to fix partition lengths, but
that didn't turn out to be any help.
Acronis Disk Director, Active Data Recovery and several other software
work on the logical drive letter level (C: D: E:, etc), but I was
looking for software that works on the low level of sectors and
cylinders.

I began realizing that the MBR (Master Boot Record) is what probably
broke down and caused all the confusion.
With further reading I realized that the MBR is BACKED UP towards the
end of a partition... Interesting...

From there I started searching for some software that will scan the
entire disk, sector by sector, and will track the MBR's backup.

Finally, I came across the GetDataBack software (www.runtime.org).
This one worked like a charm - scanned the entire disk, found the
correct MBR and successfully revived all my lost data.

Kudos to Runtime Software!!


GOOD LUCK!