Partition table error? Help!!

[Thomas Jespersen]

I can't access my d-drive,which contains all my data, digital pictures and
videos of my children... everything. Please help!

I running XP and the drive is NTFS.

This happened because I used Partition Magic 7.0 to convert the d-drive from
a Primary disk to a logical Disk (Extended partition). Partition Magic did
this in 1 second and reported the operation a success.

Now I get the following error messages:

* When I try opening it in Explorer it says "The disk in drive D is not
formatted. Do you want to format it now?"
* When I use Partition Magic now, it says: "Int Failed: Error 117.
Partition's drive letter cannot be identified"
* If I use the PM boot disk it says: "Partition table error #108 found"
* The PartitionInfo tool says "Disk Geometry error(s) were detected on this
drive".
* If I run a "Chkdsk d:" it says "The type of the file system is RAW. CHKDSK
is not available for RAW drives."

* The Disk Management in XP however reports the d-drive as Healthy!

Are there any tools which can fix my partition table?

The disk contains very valuable information, so I'm after the best tool on
the market.

Best. regards.
Thomas

 

[~misfit~]

I can't access my d-drive,which contains all my data, digital pictures and
videos of my children... everything. Please help!

I running XP and the drive is NTFS.

This happened because I used Partition Magic 7.0 to convert the d-drive from
a Primary disk to a logical Disk (Extended partition). Partition Magic did
this in 1 second and reported the operation a success.

I've seen the option to change (or set up) the disk as a logical disk and
don't understand it. Therefore all my disks are primary disks. What exactly
is a 'logical disk' and what, if any, is the advantage of configuring a disk
thus?

I've just read about one of the disadvantages (above).

 

[Thomas Jespersen]

Hello

Well the reason I wanted to changed was because I have a primary and
secondary OS installed on 2 partitions. I use PQBoot to change which
partition is active. PQ Boot hides all other primary partitions except the
one you make active. This is by tradition, because in the past (pre windows
XP/2000) one could only have one visible primary partition at the time. So
the D-drive was normally on an logical partition (in a so calld extended
partition).

It should be a simple change for Partition Magic... so I didn't take backup
(it hard to backup 80GB !!!).

Thomas

 

[Thomas Jespersen]

Follow up (now I'm even more desperate):

I found DOS based tool
(http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/~tkuurstra/DiskPatch.htm) that described my
problem and how to fix it. The problem seamed to be with a corrupted boot
sector on the volume.

I ran the program, which can restore a backup boot sector, that the NTFS
filsystem contains by default. But it seams that Partition Magic created a
backup boot sector, that was even worse. (at least for now I blame PM and
not DiskPatch, which seams to be a descent tool).

After restoring the boot sector my partition table is now very weird.

It's got the following partitions on my 120 GB Disk:
39 MB FAT Dell Utility Partition (working)
20 GB NTFS Primary Partition (working... primary OS)
20 GB NTFS Primary Partition (hidden) (working, secondary OS)

The last 80 GB used to be a primary partition for data store, but after
restoring my boot sector I now have the same 3 primary partition and on
extended partition, which is ~ 1185 GB!!! (this is not a typo) This extended
partition has got the following logical partitions:

80,42 GB Free space (this is hopefully where my data are)
23,59 GB Free space (for some reason these two free space "partition" is not
merged)
811,57 GB Logical drive (Healthy Unknown Partition)
259,39 GB Logical drive (Healthy Unknown Partition)

I have the original corrupted boot sector... but bringing it back will at
best help me get the corrupted partition table back.

Any suggestions... should I delete the extended partition and try to recover
it. So fare nothing has been written to the corrupted disk, except the
restored boot sector (as fare as I can tell).

The DiskPatch tool can also scan for lost and formatted partitions... but
I'm shaking... and don't want to take any unnecessary changes.

Thomas

 

[Graeme]

Follow up (now I'm even more desperate):

I found DOS based tool
(http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/~tkuurstra/DiskPatch.htm) that described my
problem and how to fix it. The problem seamed to be with a corrupted boot
sector on the volume.

I ran the program, which can restore a backup boot sector, that the NTFS
filsystem contains by default. But it seams that Partition Magic created a
backup boot sector, that was even worse. (at least for now I blame PM and
not DiskPatch, which seams to be a descent tool).

After restoring the boot sector my partition table is now very weird.

It's got the following partitions on my 120 GB Disk:
39 MB FAT Dell Utility Partition (working)
20 GB NTFS Primary Partition (working... primary OS)
20 GB NTFS Primary Partition (hidden) (working, secondary OS)

The last 80 GB used to be a primary partition for data store, but after
restoring my boot sector I now have the same 3 primary partition and on
extended partition, which is ~ 1185 GB!!! (this is not a typo) This extended
partition has got the following logical partitions:

80,42 GB Free space (this is hopefully where my data are)
23,59 GB Free space (for some reason these two free space "partition" is not
merged)
811,57 GB Logical drive (Healthy Unknown Partition)
259,39 GB Logical drive (Healthy Unknown Partition)

I have the original corrupted boot sector... but bringing it back will at
best help me get the corrupted partition table back.

Any suggestions... should I delete the extended partition and try to recover
it. So fare nothing has been written to the corrupted disk, except the
restored boot sector (as fare as I can tell).

The DiskPatch tool can also scan for lost and formatted partitions... but
I'm shaking... and don't want to take any unnecessary changes.

Thomas

Apart from anything else, this might be a good time to make a backup of any
valuable data.

 

[Thomas Jespersen]

I solved my problem thanks to Joep from http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/
(using there tool DiskPatch). This is the best support I have ever gotten
(MS support go home!).

Check out my support thread at:

http://pub50.bravenet.com/forum/show.php?usernum=4220517151&msgid=170701

Also note the answer time... he researched and replied within minutes. And
with a low level knowledge I can only dream of.

Best. Regards
Thomas Jespersen
Denmark