Partition Magic Help...

Can someone tell me if there is a way to recover data that was lost during a partition merge through partition magic 8.0? I have a very horrible feeling that all the data on the partition I was merging has been lost... and I'm desperate to get it back. If anyone can help, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Shannon

 

Did the merge go ok and does the new partition seem fine? If so then perhaps P/Magic has moved your data into folders somewhere on the partition.

If you can’t find the data, or your partitions are corrupt, then you should consider getting a specialist on the job if the data is important. The more you use the computer the less chance you will have of recovering anything.

If you want to have a go yourself then give a bit more detail about your partitions before and after.

 

The merge "appeared" to have worked properly... the progress was 100%. I pressed the key to reboot and the drive mapper ran upon restart. I merged the d partition into the c partition (which contains the operating system), but when I went to find the files that had been merged, only a few programs appeared. I then reopened partition magic, where it showed the original C partition hadn't changed sizes, and the other two partitions (d and e) were now unallocated. I performed the "undelete partition" function within PM, and it found the e drive... restored that partition fine. Ran the undelete function again, but no other drives were found. The d drive just disappeared. All the space was shown as unallocated space, with no drive name or letter. So, I told it to create a partition with the unallocated space... and it recreated a d drive... but it's empty. I'm guessing during the recreation the new partition was formatted, although it didn't give me any warning this would be the case.

The files aren't life-or-death files... this is just my home computer. The heart-breaking files are photos that I had not yet backed-up. Only about a month's worth... but it's sickening none-the-less. All my documents are gone, but most were unneeded or can be recreated. I just really want my pictures back!

I think I'm *******, though, huh?

~Shannon

 

yes, it did ask for a folder name, which I checked immediately for the files. Only a couple of programs were moved... none of the other data made it.

 

Trying to recover the partition in tact will be difficult now, or not even possible. I would say your best chance at present will be file recovery software that will scan the sectors of the drive for files it can recover. I would recon on a good chance of recovering about 50% of your photos.

You should try to avoid any data being written to the partition now as this will be overwriting the original data which will still be on the hard drive sectors. If you can you should hook the drive up as a slave in another computer with the partitions hidden so the operating system does not try to write to it. If you can’t do that then use Partition Magic to hide the partition, then reboot the computer. Things like System Restore, the Recycle Bin, your Anti-Virus and maybe the paging file could be writing to the partition from the booted OS.

Once safely hidden then you can install and run recovery software and point it to the partition. If your data is worth it you can spend £50 to £100 for a reasonable one. This free one gives not bad results, just a bit slow.
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm

 

Pete...

Just wanted to come back and say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! The PC Inspector program has done a fabulous job of recovering my lost files!!! It has been more than a "little" slow, but that's okay... my files are returning and so has my smile!

Thanks a million!
~Shannon