Wheres my partitions???? :-(

Oh dear.

I had 3 partitions on my drive(4o gig), C(8gig) D(10) & E(22) . I had been trying to move some free space from some 'unallocated' space to C. I used Partition Magic 7 to do this. However, E had 3 instances of 'Error 1555 - internal file number does not match position'. After trying to move the space in various ways, partitions D and E dissapeared from windows. I ran the PM7 emergency discs and did a check on the partitions. It confirmed that E (although now it wasnt actually called E) had 3 errors and so it wouldnt touch it. I then tried to merge C and D and it was going ok and it then reported some other error :-( I rebooted and now theres partition C of its original size(8gig) and content, but the rest of the hard-disc space is just one big lump of 'unallocated'!!
Im aware that Im probably up s***-creek with no paddle, but is there a small chance of getting out of this?? partitions D and E only really contained downloaded stuff, but my music collection was on E and my back-up discs havent been updated since about last year *blush*

Give me the news, doc.........

Don't think I have an awnser for you but I did spend some time looking around.
Is your Partion Magic bundled with a Norton (Symantec) product? I see they took over Partion Magic at least from version 8. Anyway saw this post:

"One partitioning tool that I have used is Partition Magic
for years now, only lost two partitions one I got back
using nortion utilities, the other I didn't care about."

google

As to the particular error, found this:

Error 1555 Internal file number does not match position

Cause: The file number stored in the header of an NTFS file does not match the file's position in the file table.
Solution: This problem can be resolved by running CHKDSK /F on the affected drive. Sometimes it must be run multiple times to resolve this error. If running under Windows 2000/XP a CHKDSK /P can be run from the recovery console to fix files that may not otherwise be fixable. CHKDSK /P from the recovery console is the same function as CHKDSK /F from the command prompt in Windows.

Also found this regarding Partion Magic 8:

Symantec Support

Just wondering if a System Restore would fix this? I don't know.

Anyway I tried

Good luck!

I dont know what happened, but I got an 'invalid partition' upon boot-up, so I tried to format and re-install windows on C, but the error still came.
Short version is Im currently starting from scratch but have back-ups of about 60% of the lost data.

Cheers anyway. Next time i think im just gonna leave things as they are and not get too 'housekeeping' mad :-)