Can't access disk after resize...

Used DD 10 to resize a partition after resizing WinXP says "access denied". I can explore in DD and see all the files. Can even create a new folder. Windows Disk Management sees the disk and the proper label. Under "My Computer" it is just "Local Disk" and I cannot access it. Any thoughts on a way to restore access to the drive with the files intact. I'm currently copying all files off the drive in case of a format, but this may take a while as it is a nearly full 500gb drive holding quite a few of my DVDs. I've included a screen shot that shows My Computer, Disk Managment, DD and DD exploring the drive.

http://www.ghostlightphotography.com/disk_troubles.jpg

Thanks in advance for any help,

David

 

David:

This sounds like a Windows permissions issue. You may need to take ownership of the files in order to gain permission to access them.

 

Unfortunately not...I don't even have the option for sharing and security settings on the drive. A bit more info...when looking at the properties for the drive from Disk Management it shows as RAW file system. Screenshot included...

http://www.ghostlightphotography.com/disk_troubles2.jpg

 

David:

That's really unusual that Windows Disk Management can identify your disk as NTFS but the disk properties page cannot.

I did a little searching for this problem and most of what I read suggests that Windows looks in two places for information about the partition type -- in the partition table and in the partition boot record. If the two entries don't match then some tools will display that everything is OK and others will not. For example, the partition table may list the type as 07 (NTFS) but the partition boot record may be corrupted. I didn't find recommended solutions other than reformatting the disk, which you probably will want to leave as a last resort since you have so much data on the disk.

Could you describe exactly what you did when you resized with Disk Director? How large was the partition before you resized it? Is the drive IDE, SATA, or USB? Can you try putting it in another PC to see if you get the same result?

 

Little update....in the interest of not pulling my hair out, I just pulled the data with Active Undelete, reformatted the drive and copied the data back. Luckily I'm a glut for HDD space lately. All appears to be working well now.

Looking back on things I'm even more confused than ever. The reason for this is that I now realize (after clearing my head of the frustration) that it was not actually this drive that I resized. It was my DVD5 drive that was resized (it was the one that had some space remaining). I assume that my problem arose from attempting to do this from within windows. The original resizing (reducing partition size and creating a new partition) went very well and had no problems. When I was done with that partition, it was the deleting of the new partition and expanding the original that flubbed things up. For some reason this required a restart while the first operation did not. All seemed to go well upon the restart, but when I got back into Windows, DVD4 was unaccessible. Go figure. I'll be doing all my partition work from a boot disk from now on.

Lesson learned.

David