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Partition not recognized by Windows XP


gui_m

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Hello! I have a problem which is more related to partitions that Windows XP but i didn't know where else to post it...

I have an external 2.5' HDD (WD Passport). I split it into two partitions, one all my files, and one empty. After a while, I attempted to merge them again with Norton PartitionMagic 8.5... It gave an error message and wasn't able to completely finish the merge process.

As a result now, when i plug in the HD via USB, no partition is recognized by Windows, not appearing on 'My Computer'. However, the drive is recognized under device manager. When I open PartitionMagic, it shows my drive with one partition with the 'Used Space' of all my files.

I know it's not a case of a faulty disk, just a badly configured partition

How can I go about repairing a partition, without losing it? When i run a check-up on the partition with PMagic i get an error 'External attribute header mismatch'...

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

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with a case like this, any attemp you do to try to get the data back, can cause you to actually loose all the data. Best solution is to contact Partition Magic people for help, or check their forum. It sounds like the FAT table got corrupt during the merge. Check the partition magic to see if they have any tools with it to fix this.

Hope this helps

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What was the error message (I'm no specialist but the error might be hardware to) ?

I guess the data partition was first and the empty space was second. I'd try TESTDISK, there is a Windows version. You might end up with a valid partition with only part of your files, depending on the moment the error occured.

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