Recover lost NTFS partition

[Nadeeja]

So my setup was like this :

• 1 partition for Mac
• 2 NTFS Partitions for Windows ( I shrinked the bootcamp partition to make another partition called "Content")

The above setup worked awesome.

So today I decided to give Windows 8 a try WHILE keeping windows 7 ( I wasn't entirely convinced by Windows 8's new look )

I couldn't shrink any of the NTFS volumes further because they were almost full. So I decided to borrow some space from the Mac partition. So I went to Disk Utility and added a new partition ( which made my Mac partition smaller) and then formatted the new partition as FAT.

Then when I booted into windows 7 my Content partition was gone!

But then I realized my bootcamp partiton (C) had somehow merged with the Content partition as it was bigger (original size + Content partition size)

Then I used testdisk to find that the partition "Content" was intact.

C and Content partitions somehow merged together when I used disk utility. But I cannot access anything on Content with windows( But testdisk can... )

what do you guys think? What are my options in getting my partition back?

Thanks for your time.
Nadeeja.

 

[juanml82]

I'd advise you to pull the drive out, get a windows computer (or another mac also running bootcamp) and a software called getdataback. The trial version will let you see if you can recover your data (you probably can), and you need to purchase to actually recover the files, by copying them to another hard drive.

Maybe you can run it from your mac partition using a virtual machine, but I'm not sure.

 

[murphychris]

I couldn't shrink any of the NTFS volumes further because they were almost full. So I decided to borrow some space from the Mac partition. So I went to Disk Utility and added a new partition ( which made my Mac partition smaller) and then formatted the new partition as FAT.

You realize how unsupported this configuration is? Windows 8, not supported at all by Apple. More than two operating systems on a single drive, also not supported at all. You are a candidate for VM, not triple booting extremely proprietary (and fussy) Apple hardware.

This is why I don't recommend Boot Camp. Users routinely do not understand what they're getting themselves into, and Disk Utility instigates data loss by inviting users to do things that cannot actually be done.

MBR partition scheme only supports four partitions. You tried to add a fifth partition, and Disk Utility should have warned you of the consequences. So you either found a bug/flaw in Disk Utility (like many users have) or you ignored the warning (like many users have).

Fortunately you did this with Disk Utility which means the GPT should be correct. If you can live with having the OS X volume unavailable in Windows, you can manually create a hybrid MBR that contains only the three Windows partitions you've created. Realize this is a non-standard hybrid MBR (as they all are, but it's even more non-standard) and I'm seeing some evidence that either Apple installers or disk repair second guesses hybrid MBR and GPT mismatches, and reverts the MBR in effect causing (temporary) inexplicable data loss of one or more partitions.

Again, this is just one of the reasons why I f'n hate Boot Camp. And it's perverted documentation that doesn't warn users of these problems.

So you should check out gdisk and this article for how you can create a new hybrid MBR, and add just the Windows partitions (looks like partitions 3, 4, 5) to the MBR, making sure that one of the Windows partitions is flagged as bootable, probably Windows 8. The others should not have boot flags set. You will need to configure the Windows 8 bootloader to negotiate booting between Windows 7 and 8, and in that regard you're on your own.

 

[murphychris]

Test Disk. Open source.

 

[renita12345]

Hi,

Just try partition recovery tool to recover your lost NTFS partition. Last week even I had lost one of my partitions due to improper backup during repartitioning of Windows hard drive. I tried this tool which really helped me to get back data lost during repartitioning. This tool can effectively solve all the problems related to deleted or lost partitions. In case you need to try the the software you can just click here.

Best of luck,
Renita

 

[throAU]

what do you guys think? What are my options in getting my partition back?

If the data is important, and loss will cost you money: stop now, and take it to a professional data recovery company. everything you do from this point that does not get your data back will further reduce your chances of successful recovery.

If the data is not important: pick random advice from random people on the internet, because thats all any response you will get here is. Whether or not some people know what they are doing, it is up to you to try and figure out who to trust, as no one is being paid to help you and no one knows EXACTLY what you or the computer may have done or has physical access to your machine.

Worst case, go back to your last backup.

You have one, right?



(because modifying partition layouts without one is a high risk operation and you really should have one. you should have at least one backup of any data you care about as standard anyway, but this is particularly risky)

 

[Marshaline]

Recover Lost Partition

Hi,
I know a software that helps one to recover lost partition. The name of the software is Yodot Hard Drive Recovery software. It can recover lost partition and also the files present in it. If you want to know on how to recover lost partition, then just download this software.