merge partition of extended p. to primary p. ERROR

[theUnattender]

ok my setup:

1HD: NTSF partitioned in

{Primary Partition}

F(40GB)

{Extended}

G(40GB)

H(40GB)

With Partition Magic I wanted to merge the G Partition to the F partition.

It said I have to reboot to make these changes, I did so.

In the booting process it worked until ~30% of the overall process and stopped with the message: File Not Found. Press any key to reboot.

So I did reboot and learned that partition F was intact.

However G and H were gone. When looking at the HD in partition magic is says

1 partition : BAD (120GB)

Question is: How can I access at least the partition H again, which was not involved (at least not meant to) ???? Because this are like 40GB of my most important stuff.

any help is much appreciated

thx

[ChunkDog]

1. You,ve just found out what I'm sure many people have about Partition Magic. Resizing and merging partitons is very ify, and will probubly not work. I have never had a successfull merge or resize with PM, any version, but it is great for creating and deleting partitions.

2. Now I'm assuming that you cant see the drives(partitions) in windows, but can you see them in Partition Magic?

3. Try Checking the hard drive for errors in Partition Magic.

4. Try getting some data recovery program, Like "GetDataBack" or "Active@ Partion Recovery" or even "Ontrack Easy Recovery". Those programs should help you get your data back from the missing partion. I would recomend "GetDataBack" over all others though, but it has a strong learning curve to really be efficient with it.

[theUnattender]

Uff ...

I was able to reaccess partition G with Acronis RecoveryExpert.

this was making my day

@ChunkDog

thx for your help

actually I never had any problem with resizing in Partition Magic.

can you suggest other products for merging, etc. .. from your experience ??

[ChunkDog]

I really dont know of any other programs out there to manipulate partitions like PM, but I'm sure they exist. I dont think PM will get any better now that Symantec Owns them, just look at Norton Antivirus, what a piece of bloated crap.

Always make sure to make the restore disks with PM, so you can undo things if you run into a situation like this one again.

I'm surprised you have had such good luck with PM.

[firefoxthebomb]

I have always had great luck with Partition Magic, weather it is creating, deleting, or merging partitions. When you have a drive that has more than two partitions though, you have to make sure that you merge them in the correct order or you may encounter problems. Trick is to make sure you save to the rescue disk so that you can always undo changes if something goes wrong. I am glad for you that you were able to get your data back. I was going to suggest booting to dos and then running a program called NTFSPRO to access your partitions. I have done this in the past with great success. Anyway I am glad you got your stuff working again.

As far as other software that does what Partition Magic does, I am not sure which ones do it, but I would tend to rely on what I know works for me, the key being ME, and that would be PM.

[theUnattender]

I really dont know of any other programs out there to manipulate partitions like PM, but I'm sure they exist. I dont think PM will get any better now that Symantec Owns them, just look at Norton Antivirus, what a piece of bloated crap.

Always make sure to make the restore disks with PM, so you can undo things if you run into a situation like this one again.

I'm surprised you have had such good luck with PM.

you are right that Partition Magic won't get better under the hands of Symantec ..

i think i will spend some time with Acronis .. install, program, usage looks good so far B)