Partitions missing in XP...But I see them with 3rd party utils...

[InDashMP3]

I recenlty did a reinstall of Windows XP on physical drive 0. I did a format of C, and reinstlled the O/S from scratch. Everything appeared to go fine. I was up and running in no time. I noticed a problem though soon after install. When I went into "My Computer", I noticed 3 of my logical partitions were no longer visible. They were all there prior to the O/S reinstall, but I did not do ANYTHING to these partitions. I started to panic, as I do not regularly back up my files on these drives, yet I have recently placed VERY IMPORTANT files on each of them!!! During my panic, I d/l several shareware utilities to try and see if I can recover my partitions. One of them was Active@ Partition Recovery available at www.ntfs.com. This utility boots up from a floppy and directly accesses the drive. When the app started low and behold I could SEE my three missing partitions, with the correct drive letters and everything. I was even able to VIEW the contents of these partitions, and all of my files appear to be there! However, when I boot into windows they are no longer there!!! In XP, I looked at disk management and noticed it says 30GB of FREE SPACE!! This 30 GB free space should actually by one 20GB partition, and two 5GB partitions(my missing partitions). Partition magic WINDOWS interface shows similar results. I see 30GB of unallocated space. BUT.....when I boot up using the Partition Magic rescue disks, I SEE my partitions!! How come I can see them when I boot a utility from floppy, but Windows wont see them?? Is it possible that when I boot from floppy, a different MBR is being referenced compared to the one used to boot into Windows?? Please, any help greatly appreciated!!!!!

[InDashMP3]

known_criminal,

Thanks for the reply!! Won't PMagic format the partition after I create it? I guess what is confusing to me is that the Partition Magic that runs from the RESCUE disk shows my partition information!!??

Check out these screen captures.

1.) Disk Manager (Notice: No J,K,L Drives...But FREE SPACE??)


2.) Active@ Partition Recovery software (Shows my partitions..See J, K, L ??)


3.) PMagic Rescue Interface (Shows my partitions)




I'm afraid if I create the partition, PMagic is going to format my data, and I'll lose it! Remember, I can see the partions from the Rescue Disks..

Thanks again for your efforts! Happy Thanksgiving!!

[Play_The_0dds]

let me back up my f drive, i will delete that partition, and use partition magic7, which 6 was no different in operation. and see, give me about 20 minutes at most

[Play_The_0dds]

ok, this went badly, after deleting the f partition on the machine i was using at the moment, now xp wont boot. will fix the problem with xp, then try again to recreate a drive with info intact and get back to you.

[InDashMP3]

kc,

Thanks for your efforts. I really appreciate any assistance I can get!!

[Play_The_0dds]

i deleted my above post because it was wrong, i have not used the program in a while and have only used the version 7 maybe once.anyway, when you have the program open, in windows or booted from floppy (worked both ways). right click a partition you need to get back, then select advanced, it will expand another context menu that will have a set active option, use it, if it is greyed out, we will have to try something else. any other attempt i made killed the info on the drive. while you are checking that, i am going to do some google searching to see if i can find anything else that might help. guess i have been lucky and spoiled by ntfs, have not had to do this in a very long time, usually the drive(partitions) comes with a new install with no problems.

[InDashMP3]

kc,
Yeah, the ADVANCED option is grayed out. For some reason, the rescue floppy disks from Partition Magic are looking at a different partition table than the Windows based application. I want whatever the floppy based app is looking at to be my partition table for windows!! This is killing me!!! Thanks for your help though. Let me know if you come accross anything..

[Play_The_0dds]

trial download of file scavenger looks worth trying.
http://www.webattack.com/editorials/e-undelete.html
i backup often, i am just used to windows i guess, i have used partition magic in the past quite a bit, mainly on windows 98 machines, good to get tested once in a while. curious, why did you reinstall xp, and did you delete the partitions when you did the install? this is puzzling to me , why they just disapeared.

[Play_The_0dds]

ok after much searching, the file scavenger looks like the best bet at this point, several post i read seemed unresolved most programs require you buy the program (no trial) found some forum post by me from a couple of years ago(9x systems), lol they really need to dump some of that stuff after a while. for anyone who reads this post and uses windows, back up things you must have often, cdr disk are cheap. burners are cheap now. back up your registry often, before software installs, system changes configurations. if you want a really easy way to back up your reg, download a registry cleaner that makes a backup.
http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/Art...329/15329.html
that link has a download for microsofts regclean, win2k ,98,me, nt4.
now even if you are on xp download the file it is a self extractor. once extracted go to
C:\Program Files\Regclean
in the folder double click the regclean icon that looks like a rubics cube let it run ok it to finnish. now in the same folder another file appeared, right click it, select copy, go to my documents and right click a open area and select paste.can save anywhere you like. xp users can double click the file now to undo the changes it made. now you have a backup of the reg, just double click it when you need to. make a new one anytime you install software, updates, drivers, any changes at all. will save having to repair/reinstall xp for many problems.