I Merged two Partitions with Patition Magic and now i can't access! – 3965 days old

[ImaginAsian]

Hey guys...I really need some serious help here.

Used Partition Magic 7.0 to merge two non primary partitions on my main hard drive, volume H merged into volume E (which were next to each other). The merge process went fine and went PM went to check for erros I got too errors (something like "too few clusters").

After that I no longer had H or E, just this blank partition residing as a logical partition beneath my main primary partition C:

Win XP can't see it (ie My Computer) through normal GUI but PM can see it. I ran PM using the rescue disks and the same result.

When I ran the XP Recovery Console, I was able to CD to E: which to my relief I did see the data still there intact. However, I noticed a new directory called "Merge" with the rest of the my data. Problem is i can not access any of the directories. When I do, I get an "Access is Denied". I ran CHKDSK on E: and it said there were errors on the drive (but it didn't do anything to fix them?!?!)

This is not good...this data houses ALL my music, pictures A/V stuff!!!

I am lost what to try now. Here is a shot of what PM sees:

[James]

You had these backed up,right?

[AmStoned]

Man, I don't think he backed it up on a separate HD or on CDs.

[Case]

Yeah, not likely he backed up 14 gigabytes of data . . .

Very Curious IA. Do you have another computer running XP that you could slave this drive to and try and access the files that way?

[TJM4FUN]

Well, here's a stupid thought, did you try the undo function?

I never use the merge function, I usually shrink the partition I
want to go away to it's smallest size, and move ll the freespace into the directory I am keeping, the let windoze copy the files over, and if the copy goes fine, then delete the other partition and add the freespace in.
Longer, but safer.

I would report this error to power quest, as this is a serious problem if merge doesn;t work right. If you did this from diskettes, there should still be undo or recovery info on there.
If not, you have my sympathies...
(or send me the drive, and the diskettes you used, and I'll try to recover them on my xp machine)

[Mad dog]

Have you looked at the Disk managment tool? Located by right clicking on the My Computer icon and then selecting manage. Does the partition show up there and if so, what does windows say about it?

[ImaginAsian]

SOB - the solution was to assign a driver letter to that partition. I assigned it "E:" and voila - it appears in the Win GUI now. The merge directory holds all the files from the partition you merged from.

The fact that PM doesn't assign the drive letter upon a finished merge is lame. All night at the club I was worried about my files!!

Thanks for the help folks - I'll definately take the advice not to use the merge and rather use Windows to copy before dumping the partition. This is too risky and yes yes time to back up....

[Case]

Sweet man, I'm really happy you figured it out - You know, I noticed that the partition didn't have a drive letter, but it just never clicked . . .

[Mad dog]

Originally posted by ImaginAsian

All night at the club I was worried about my files!!

And of course normal people don't understands how or why you get so worried about data on a HD

Originally posted by ImaginAsian

Thanks for the help folks - I'll definately take the advice not to use the merge and rather use Windows to copy before dumping the partition. This is too risky and yes yes time to back up....

Yeah, i always get nervous when messing with partitions as i never seem to have my data backed up either.

[Case]

Hey, you know IA, I got the best advice from you long ago in a thread far far away . . . I scan all my important docs (including paystubs, bank statements, tax papers) into a folder on my desktop callled Vital Documents, and then every month or so I burn a CD and label it and send it up the river to my mohter-in-laws. I have no idea what she does with them, but I know she chisels them away safely somewhere.

Maybe you need to like sort out your tunes into different folders that would fit on a CD, and do some burning after you go to bed. Unless can you burn over multiple CD's the contents of a large folder? That would be even better, but you best get this stuff burned, especially now while you're freshly "motivated"

[ImaginAsian]

good thinking case - i actually have the music grouped nicely in sb directories and have been meaning to burn them...the ever procrastination syndrome usually wins hehe

not any more though - this scared the crap outta me. im turning a new leaf