Partition problems

Everything was fine until I needed to restore my Vista partition with ATI 11, something I have done several times before without problems. After the restore three of the four logical partitions holding my data simply disappeared, only the first still being visible. I have managed to find and undelete the missing partitions using DD10 but clearly now have problems with my partition table as the pic below shows, as none of the logical partitions is listed in the table.

On reboot I now get a warning 'Unrecognized partition type...', the rest disappearing before I can read it. I have Grub4DOS as boot manager, but this can now only boot the Vista partition. Neither the Windows 7 nor VistaPE_1 partitions will now boot, and instead they pass me to the Windows Boot Manager where I have the choice of Installing Windows or booting Vista.

The relevant stanzas from menu.lst are :-

title Windows Vista
root (hd0,2)
makeactive
# Hide Windows 7, unhide Vista
hide (hd0,0)
unhide (hd0,2)
chainloader /bootmgr

title Windows 7
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
# Hide Vista, unhide Windows 7
hide (hd0,2)
unhide (hd0,0)
chainloader /bootmgr

title VistaPE_1
root (hd0,3)
# Unhide both Windows 7 and Vista
unhide (hd0,0)
unhide (hd0,2)
chainloader /bootmgr

 

Logical partitions are in the Extended Partition Container (shown in slot 2 of your graphic). To view the actual Logical partitions, you need to click the Enter button and dig down through the linked list.

When you restored the Vista partition was it the only partition restored?

Was that partition Active and not hidden when you did the restore?

 

No logical partitions appear in the table when Enter is clicked - pic attached.
I only restored the Vista partition, and did it from a VistaPE CD. The target partition was the active partition.

While waiting a response I have been considering ways of cleaning up the partition structure, basically by zapping the disk, recreating the partitions with DD at approximately their present sizes, restoring recent images of the Windows 7, Vista and VistaPE_1 partitions, and restoring the contents of the data partitions from backups.

It would be rather a lot of work but ought to guarantee a problem free disk afterwards. However if there is a quicker alternative I'd try it first.

 

That is showing a Logical partition (in the first slot). If you now click Enter for the second slot you'll get "linked" to the next Logical partition in the chain.

Have you run chkdsk /f on all the partitions to check for any errors?

 

Thanks for that - that partition table makes me nervous and I hesitate to click on anything without guidance.

I haven't run chkdsk yet but did look in DD at each partition's Properties > Errors. All were error free except Vista, which said it was calculating but never came back with a result.

I'll run chkdsk /f in the morning and if that doesn't fix it and if there are no other suggestions I'll go ahead and reformat the disk.

 

All sorted. I had been testing Paragon's Drive Backup Express for someone else, and although I can't be too sure exactly what caused so many problems I'm sure it's no coincidence. Thankfully TI, DD and MudCrab have enabled me to extricate myself from the mess without losing anything