Help Hard Disk partition Dissapeared valuable data inside.......?

Question

My Laptop has four partitions C, D, E and F.......
One of the partition (E:) has dissapeared......

Checked it through Control Pannel>Performance & Maint>Computer Mgmt>Disk Mgmt........ the partition has been converted to unpartitioned space.......

how did it happen ......I don't know....I didn't do it.... no kids in house.... no grudges aganist collegues....

System is Win XP Media Centre Edition ver 2002. cmptr = laptop hpdv6114TX.... I had installed PC file inspector Recovery tool..... tried using it...... doesn't detect the unpartitioned space (earlier E: drive)..... Norton Internet Security 2006 installed...... subscription expired today...... what luck huh???

Amazing thing is that the system restore point that I had so painstakingly created at regular intervals have also vanished...... Is it a virus attack.....????

How do I recover the data in it.????......some data backed up but a lot of ammendments and changes have gone through it in the last few days

PLEASE HELP

Answer 1

Did you try running a chkdsk on all your partitions?

Answer 2

if your demanding force is extraordinarily much finished already then there is not any longer a number of element in partitioning it. you nonetheless won't have from now on room and could desire to somewhat truthfully lose a number of your archives. Why no longer purchase a USB demanding force, a 250 gig is obtainable in case you save around for purely £60. you're able to desire to then partition that and speak to partitions as music pictures and so on and circulate stuff off your inner force onto the acceptable partition. this will even have the earnings of leaving your archives available by yet another workstation could desire to you have a demanding force crash. wish this helps.

Answer 3

Is the partition a USB external drive? If so write it off as a Windows gotcha.

Recovery is difficult, need to read the disk byte by byte in ASCII or hex, specialized software to do that.