Shrinking Vista partition caused system crash

[The-Farmer]

My system crashed when I was trying to shrink partition. I want to create some space to install Ubuntu on that. I have 3 partitions in my system. The C drive was of 100GB. I thought to reduce this to 80GB and extract 20Gb for Ubuntu. First I tried to do that with the help of disk management. It popped a error on screen saying that Windows cannot be shrink that size. I check the size which showed only 40GB in use. Later on I downloaded and installed partition magic in my system. I tried the same with that but my windows failed to boot. I am using Windows Vista. The system just reboot on Windows screen. With bootable Windows disc I can see all the 4 partitions. Is there a way I can restore old stuff back. I do not want to shrink partition.

[Agavoli]

That is a mistake you did. You simply shrinked your system partition to over limit. You must have not ignored that warning. I will advice you take backup of your system. You can do that with Ubuntu Live Disc. As you said that you were going to install Ubuntu, then I assume that you are having the bootable disc. Boot from that disc and copy the data. Next use Windows Vista installation disc to re-install the operating system back again. I do not think there is a chance to restore the system. The important this that your windows partition is affected. And that is the core of operating system. Your system will crash instantly if any changes are done to the file system. You can try to boot in safe mode and check that you can see your screen. If not then there is no way other fresh installation. Sometime you get a message on the screen at the time of boot under advance option. Restore the Last Good Known Configuration. You can find that when you hit F8 to enter safe mode. Hit that and reboot.

[Iquau]

You can try to run fixmbr command under recovery mode. The easiest way is running startup repair. Insert Vista installation disc and click on Repair. Then click on Startup Repair. The disc will try to find the issue with damaged file and fix them.

[Jessalyn]

I did the same last month when I was trying to extract some space for data backup. I did the same mistake. I was too using partition magic. It is best recommended that you must always use Windows Disk Management tool to find the right size that you can extract. When you right click on a partition on Disk Manager you get option to shrink volume. After clicking on that the tool shows you the maximum space that you can have. You must never go above that. Disk Management properly separates the partition and overwrite mbr. In this way nothing is lost. I had over reduce the size of my partition and did not receive any warning in partition magic. I think there should be some kind of tool integrated in partition magic which can hel us to restore the last partition format. There is no such tools are integrated inside this software.

[Loveyboo]

Better re-install and from next time use Disk Management. There is nothing you do. The first answer is proper. You can use LiveCD to run and copy paste your content.

[jaykant]

There is a partition recovery tool by easeus. What you can do is keep this installed in your system. I do not know how it works but it can help you to recover the lost partition. I am sure there must be some way in this software to restore the lost space. Or else there is one more powerful tool available. Called as Active Partition Recovery Toolkit. This is a set of tools that can be used to recover the damaged or lost partition. I think Active Partition Recovery Toolkit works in bootable mode. You must keep anyone of those tool installed in your system. And the last best option I can give you is of Norton Ghost. This software is one of the best restoration tool I had found yet. I had given a dedicated 10Gb space to keep a backup of my Windows directory. In case of issue I just run it and it gives me back everything. Good for those who are fed with slow system performance.

[Phalguni88]

From whatever tool that you had mentioned the best is Active Partition Recovery. Ghost is for entire system restoration. You can try using fixmbr command in the recovery mode. I hope that can fix the mbr issue.

[BethanyI]

There is no powerful partition repair tool yet. And if there is any you will need to keep that pre-installed. You cannot recover that after getting the issue. That is the reason why you get a hidden recovery partition in laptops. So that if there is such issue you can quickly factory restore your system. I will advice you to reformat your system and make the adjustment to partition at the time of installation. Do not touch other parts. Vista installation is simple and quick. I am sure here even startup repair cannot help you. Your system mbr might be deleted because of shrinking the partition. There is no option in Window also that can restore it.

[Vitel]

There are some free recover deleted partition tools on web. You can download one of them and try out. I think some of it might work and help you to restore the system.

[Sitia]

What I know that you had by mistakes made changes to the mbr. Even if you restore you will need to re-install Vista. When I need to shrink partition I do not use third party software nor Disk Management. I use Windows installation disc. When you boot from Windows bootable dvd you can see option to extend and to shrink a partition. From there you can properly reduce the size and get healthy partition. I had never faced issue while making changes to any of the storage from bootable disc. Basically the C drive consist of all important windows files. Any of those if deleted then you can face critical system failure issues.