Hard Drive Wiped Out

[darthangel]

Hi guys,

I'm new to these forums and have a very minimal tech level, so hopefully I am asking an original question unique to my case. My laptop has a weird partitioning scheme where there's a 45 GB (C: Drive) that contains the OS and a 181 GB (D: Drive) for data. Anyway, I had downloaded Partition Magic because I wanted to somehow combine these two drives into one, so I decided to run Partition Magic, but the program wouldn't start because of compatibility issues.

So I decided to delete Partition Magic and this is when my computer froze up, and after i restarted my comp, the next thing you know my entire D: Drive for storing data is MISSING! I had not touched or executed any command in the partitioning software which would warrant this end result. When I checked the system manager, the 181 GB was still there, but the D: drive doesn't exist at all. Its like it never existed... Luckily, my C: Drive is still intact, but my D: Drive is nowhere to be found. I just want one hard drive and not two, So my question is: How can I transfer that lingering 181 GB into my C: Drive which currently is only 45 GB? I just want a single partition..

Thank you for the help.

 

[Lexluethar]

You should backup all data, then use Gparted to combine both partitions. Then reinstall the OS on that one large partition.

There is nothing wrong with having two partitions on one drive. In fact most people would probably prefer it that way - i know i would. Reason being is virus's and malware usually just infect the OS files and directories of a system. So lets say for whatever reason you have to reinstall your OS because of a virus, want to change the OS, or possibly a windows file just became corrupt. With the OS on one partition and your data on the other all you have to do is reinstall the OS w/o every touching your data. This is a much better setup then having your OS and data all on one partition. Because then what happens when you have to reinstall the OS? You'll either have to backup your data or you'll lose all of your data. See the benefit?

Since somehow the allocation table is messed up on the data partition you'll probably have to reformat that partition in order for the OS to see it. If you have the option i would keep the partitions separate. Do this by using Gparted, format the 181 GB. This will obviously erase all data on that drive, but if you can't restore the drive table with a recovery software you're out of luck and will just have to reformat the partition.

Edit: whoops flash was right, i got the drives messed up, i've updated my info.

 

[FlashDude]

Wait, didn't he say it was the d drive that was missing? Just format the free space to get it back. However anything on that partition that you would like to save would have to be covered before doing that, with recovery software.