merge partition error :(

I tried to merge two partitions, one being my XP partition, using disk director suit. It required a reboot to do it, during the procedure-- at around 17 per cent -- it said 'operation error' and just stopped

Now whenever i turn on the pc windows loads for a while and then director suit loads up and performs some operations and the pc reboots.

Is there anyway to reverse the damage?

I was very happy with the product up until now... i can't believe they didnt add a feature that reverses the operation if an error occurs

 

hehe i'm going to write one final appeal before i run xp repair on the drive? anyone have any ideas?

it would be much appreciated

 

If you boot from the rescue cd and look at the drive, are the partition(s) shown correctly?

Since it quit during the procedure, the merge may not have finished correctly and the partition may not be valid or files may not be linked correctly, etc.

I suppose you could run chkdsk on the partition and see if it shows any errors. (I think you can run chkdsk from DD.) I wouldn't run it to fix them, though, just to see if there are any. If there are no errors then it's probably okay. If tons of errors show up then the partition file table is probably messed up.

If you don't have errors, then it should be safe to do the XP repair and see if you can get it to boot.

For future reference, it's usually better to do procedures that affect the Windows partition by booting from the rescue cd instead of starting it in Windows.

As far as a reversal goes, there is no way to return to the previous state once the merge has started unless you have a backup (True Image, etc.). I always recommend doing backups before making changes to partitions. Even though it is "supposed" to be safe and not cause data loss, sometimes things go wrong.