Finally recovered the lost partition with everything and anything. For the recored and because somebody might need it: Installed Acronis Disk Director, because of its boot selector, which lets you choose from which partition/disk and so on you will boot. (Even CDs and DVDs can be thrown into the mix.) Installed Restorer 2000 Pro. Turned off the computer. Plugged in the old disk. Turned the computer on and chose the new installation to boot in. Started Restorer and told it to recover the files from the lost partition (that Windows said was not formatted) onto another partition on the new disk. BTW, the new partition should be bigger than the old one, because Restorer will restore everything. The files that were moved twice will be restored three times. So, four hours passed. I read a part of Martin's A Feast for Crows. And finally, it was finished. Two files out of 45800 were lost. That includes about 5000 files that were duplicates. Nevertheless: All hail Restorer 2000 Pro! The problem ultimately, I think, lies in software. It appears that Windows whacked that partition when shutting down. Possibly because of bad disk cable. So I've got a brand new 200GB hard and the old 160GB one, which will end as a backup drive. But now for the full installation of programs and stuff on the new disk. And then the installation of Windows and select programs on my new computer. I hate installing Windows.

way to go..

Wow! Bet you're one happy camper, good for you! So Restorer 2000 Pro was the ticket...thanks for that helpful tip.

Excellent! I'm glad to hear you were able to recover your files! I hope I never have to use Restorer or Acronis, but it's good to know that such solutions do work.

Yup, I have Disk Director and True Image. I'm cloning to a new drive right this minute with True Image. This will be the 5th drive I'm replacing in the past 3 months. Acronis had a nice deal just before Xmas. You got True Image, Disk Director, and one other of their programs (I forgot which) for $59.99. I don't know if the special is still going on or not?

AAAGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! Where were you last week!!!!!!! (sigh)

I don't know... where was I? ;-) If you bought Disk Director from Acronis, you should have gotten a 20% off your next purchase coupon. If you don't have True Image, I really recommend getting it. Besides cloning drives, it has good backup and recovery tools. Works with any type of drive, internal and external. And unlike the latest version of Norton Ghost, it works with older versions of Windows and not just Win2K and XP. Sorry for the commercial. But when your drive starts having write errors or dissappears when you bootup and it's got all your 3D apps and images on it...Waaaaa! TI9.0 has saved me twice so far. :)

Attached Link: http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm

A bit late now though, since you've got it licked.

Message edited on: 01/22/2006 10:18

Not only got it licked, but actually fixed all the errors on the partition with Disk Director. The problem was in software, and now Windows see the partition normally. Oh, well, I needed another disk for real backup anyway. :-)

Congratulations and thanks for sharing.

Happy for you. Way cool