[RESOLVED] Merging 2 partitions with Partition Magic 8 !Problem!

Hi everybody!

I need help!

I have a 120Gb Hdd with 2 NTFS partitions.
The first (C) has about 15Gb where i have the XP Pro installed.
The second one (D) has the remain space, about 100Gb.
I never changed the cluster size of both partitions.

I wanted to merge this two partition to have the previous configuration, ie, just an HDD of 120Gb with only one partition....the default size. At this point, it's ok.

So, i used Partition Magic 8, to merge them. Following the wizard, the only thing that was prompted to me was asking to which Folder name i would like to store the contents of partition 2 (D), on partition 1 (C). Cool!

So, my option was to store it on "C:\DRIVE_D" folder.

As a final step, a restart was resquested! So i did it!

When restarting, Partition Magic started to do the merging process. It lasted about 1h30m.
Right at the end of the operation, 100%, PM raised an error saying that something was wrong with the geometry of the partitions. :mad:

When XP started, i clicked on "My Computer" and there was only 1 partition (C) as i was expecting....but the "C:\DRIVE_D" folder was empty.
I figured also that the C partition still have the same 15Gb size, and the "old" D partition still exist but as "unallocated space" :confused: :mad:

Checking it with Windows Disk Management it just says that D partition has free space (green area)....not as an "Unallocated Space" as informed by Partition Magic.

BIG PROBLEM!!! I have on D partition very important and unique data. Unfortunately, i had no resources to make a backup of this data before the merge operation.
I though "Merge feature" would solve my problem without data loss. Bad Luck!

Now, everytime i start Partition Magic, it says that Drive 1 has errors and that i must not do any operation over the partitions to don't lose data and to backup everything to restore later after new partition creation.

If i do a MS chkdsk on C, it say that it cannot finish the operation!
There must me something on this partition, and i belive that physicaly, the data still on partition D.

My friends, anyone know how can i retrive the data of my "loved" partition D??

Thanks,...and thanks for your help in advance!!

Best Regards
Fernando Simoes

Hi Fernando, welcome to Virtual Dr :)

First of all don't write anything to your hard drive, as you may overwrite your data.

You can try these two freeware file recovery programs, they have been successful in recovering data for many of our members in the past:

PC Inspector

Restoration

Restoration can be run from a floppy disk, so that would be the opne to try first. If you don't have any luck with that, take the hard drive out and put it in another machine as a slave drive, and then try PC Inspector there, so that you don't overwrite your data with the recovery software.

Hi!

Thank you very much! :)
I will try with those tools to recover de data.
I will try also, if unsucessful, with Acronis DiskDirectorSuite10.0, or Paragon Partition Manager Pro or Ontrak EasyRecovery Professional.

I have another hdd, with 40gb which i will put as master and install xp, with the hdd that has the partition to be recovered as slave.
Yes, i have in mind that i must not write anything on that disk. For precaution, i will not write anything else even on C partition .

Once more, i thank you for your help.
I'll tell you later about the news :)

Best Regards,
Fernando Simoes

Hi again!

PC Inspector was a nice try. It searched for several files....meanwhile i didn't finished the search.

As an alternative, i used the Ontrak EasyRecovery, and it worked!! :)
Past 1 hour, it finded the old NTFS partition with the whole file structure, then i checked the files i pretend to recover! Simple as that. My "life" is back again! :)

Thanks for your help, thanks for all! EasyRecovery is a nice bet also :)

You're very welcome, I'm glad you got your data back :)

I agree That EasyRecovery is very good, it's what I use myself, I don't usually recommend it until the freeware ones have been tried though, as it's quite expensive.