Help! - lost a 30GB Partition!

frank777

Help! I've manages to loose over 30GB of my Hard Drive - Capacity 120GB - I've got XP Home installed. I've tried Freeware Partition Software, some will recover 1GB and others are useless unless you pay? I tried Easeus Partition Recovery - excellent, found the missing 30GB Partition and all I had to do was tick a box to recover. It would not let me tick the box but came up with this message - This partition cannot be undeleted because it will overwrite the existing system or boot. I know it's trying to protect my windows system but how do I recover my lost partition? I'm fortunate that I have the original Hard Drive stashed away, I've ordered an external Hard Drive Caddy from Currys in the hope that when I reinstall the old Hard Drive and fit the existing Hard Drive in the caddy and I will be able to recover the Partition with Easeus Partition Recovery. If that fails do a complete Erase and reformat my Hard Drive and reinstall.

Anyone had a similar experience, will I get my 30GB back!

WTFH

I'd just format the drive and restore it from the backup you did before you started creating a new partition.

How did you create the new partition?
What did you call the new partition?

frank777

I've very recently reinstalled the XP to try to resolve the lost partition, it's still missing after a full install x3 times, which included reformatting the drive during installation. I've got 1 drive showing named C by default now. No system backup, all document files are backed up, I've done google search etc - that's where I came across all the freeware. My problems appeared to start when I installed Linux recently, the edition I installed was not compatable with my 9 year old computer and I used freeware to uninstall the Linux startup script by mistake before uninstalling the system.

:)I'll try to use Easeus Partition Recovery when my Hard Drive is in the caddy - hopefully it will recover the lost partition - problem solved.

If not a quick answer would be great - can I format my existing hard drive if I put it in the external Hard Drive caddy and will it recover a :)clean hard drive with the full 120 GB. :(Windows Home edition does not allow me to format the drive when it's installed.

WTFH

How or where did you install the linux, and what flavour was it?

frank777

Dual Boot- C drive
Linux MINT 15 olivia 32 bit, Xfce 4.1 LIVE DISK

I made the mistake of installing it before I gave it a good testing. I've got Zorin 7 LIVE DVD which runs a lot better on my old Dell Dimension 2400

I thought about reinstalling original again to reclaim lost partition, but don't fancy loosing another 30GB