Help! The second partition on my boot drive has disappeared!!!

[Patrick]

I turned on my computer today and the second partition on my boot drive doesn't appear to exist anymore. The drive is an IDE 10 Gb Seagate Medalist Pro which was divided into two partitions, 3 Gb on the C partition and 7 Gb on the D partition. Win98se does not recognize the D partition any longer, only the C partition. The other drives in my computer appear, but of course they've now moved up a notch in regards to the drive letters.

I desperately need the info on the D partition. What has happened??!!!

[Wombat]

Sounds like a corrupt partition table. That's pretty bad. Someone else will have to chime in, but I think the Norton utilities might be able to help you. I don't know of any default MS tools that can.

[Patrick]

Tears running down my cheek...

That's not what I wanted to hear.

I have Norton Utilities installed. What can it do?

[Kosh Naranek]

My first choice would be PartitionMagic ... I believe they have a trial/shareware version available !
If PartitionMagic can't fix it ... nothing can I think !

[Rags]

I would be more concerned if the size of the remaining partitions had suddenly jumped up in size.

Partition magic and other disk management tools can help.

Rags

[Patrick]

Slight glimmer of hope maybe...

Thanks for the responses guys. Sounds like there might possibly be some hope. I have a copy of Partition Magic here that I've never used. Guess it's time to dust it off.

[KeiFront]

Probably the Fat table is corrupt you can restore this with a diskeditor or partition magic.

[xortam]

Use a partition manager, such as FDISK, and see if the partition is even still defined. You've got a corrupted partition table if it doesn't show up on such a utility. You've got FS problems if the partition displays correctly but the OS doesn't recognize the volume(s). I couldn't see any partitions under W2K once and was able to correct it simply using the Recovery Console ... nice!!!

[cjolley]

If PM doesn't help you then try Norton.
I have had it recover corrupted partition tables before.
Chuck

[DentyCracker]

Exercise caution with disk utilities

Sometimes for whatever reason, a partition becomes hidden.
Win9X doesn't like more than one primary partition on a drive. I'd try to put the HD in a win2k or winxp machine and see if the partition is seen then back it up before using any disk utilities

[Patrick]

A little more info...

Win9X doesn't like more than one primary partition on a drive.

Denty, There is only one primary partition on the boot drive. The partition that's disappeared is an extended DOS partition. I'll try your idea though about putting the drive in a Win2k computer to see if it shows up. Thanks.

You've got FS problems if the partition displays correctly but the OS doesn't recognize the volume(s).

xortam, When I used fdisk it showed the missing partition, but interestingly enough, it did not give me the option of displaying the logical drive information. For example, if I run fdisk on another computer with the same partitions, I get this prompt:

The Extended DOS Partition contains Logical DOS Drives.
Do you want to display the logical drive information? (Y/N)

Does the fact that this prompt doesn't appear tell us something? By the way xortam, what does FS stand for in your post?

Wombat and Chuck, you've both mentioned using Norton Utilities which I currently have loaded on the computer. Which particular utility would I use? If there's something in Norton which might help I'd like to use that before I try Partition Magic which I'm totally unfamiliar with.

[DentyCracker]

I still think that putting the drive in a win2k/xp machine and backing up its contents should be done, especially if the partition is readable uder those OSes. Oh I see you're taking on that one. FS refers to FileSystem. The thing about Norton is that if it fails then you partition is fubar.

Interestingly I've been able to restore formatted partitions with BeOS. That is usually my last resort.

[rubank]

Patrick,

why not try a search in Google for " harddisk lost partition", you should get a lot of hints this way.

Or you could go herehttp://moscht.tripod.com/DOS/ and download his HDTOOL, that claimes to solve your problem.

rubank

[cjolley]

Re: A little more info...

Originally posted by Patrick
...Wombat and Chuck, you've both mentioned using Norton Utilities which I currently have loaded on the computer. Which particular utility would I use?...

Plain old ordinary Disk Doctor can fix most of these problems.
Chuck

[Pace]

Re: A little more info...

Originally posted by Patrick
By the way xortam, what does FS stand for in your post?

Filesystem I'd think.

And, if the above all fail, try GetDataBack from <a href="http://www.runtime.org">Runtime Software</a>, I used it personally recently for a very badly damaged drive - recovered every data file we needed (except command.com ).