Disappearing partitions with PM8

[provoko]

I had 4 partitions in total c, e, f, g on an 80 gig harddrive. C and E were ntfs, f and g were fat32. I merged c and e only, got this strange message that asked me to put in a disk in drive A. There is no disk or explanation to why, so I restarted, and when I came back into windows xp, ALL 3 of my partitions were gone, e, f, and g.

Doesn't make sense. All partition magic 8 said was "there was an error," thats it, "merging partitions complete."

Now all PM8 says that there is unallocated space where my 3 parts were, can't undelete, can't reverse. Don't know what to do. Any help? Thanks.

 

[SkyHi]

Um, so is your main partition 80 gs now? If it is, you can't get your old partitions back. If it's not, I believe you're able to rename, under same circumstances, the partitions that screwed up.

 

[provoko]

It's not, C is still the same size, the other 3 are just gone in unallocated space.

I ran this other program called Partition Table Doctor, and it found the 3 that are missing, E, F, and G, but they want me to pay for the program to use it.....

It's some kind of fixboot or rebuild/restore partition table crap. How come partition magic 8 can't find it and this part table doctor can?

 

[Rundat]

It's not, C is still the same size, the other 3 are just gone in unallocated space.

I ran this other program called Partition Table Doctor, and it found the 3 that are missing, E, F, and G, but they want me to pay for the program to use it.....

It's some kind of fixboot or rebuild/restore partition table crap. How come partition magic 8 can't find it and this part table doctor can?

check your pm

 

[provoko]

So I found a free version of Partition Table Doctor, it's for dos So I found a free version of Partition Table Doctor, it's for dos only, but it had all the options. I used this option called fixboot which brought back all the partitions except for E.

E drive showed up, but I couldn't access it. It's table (i'm guessing) was still corrupted. So I did this option called rebuild partition table, and I was able to access it, but windows diskscanned it and deleted all the files on E drive! Said they were corrupted and what not.

What should I have done with a corrupted drive so that I can retrieve information from it. I guess it's too late now, but what should I have done?