I have a system with four partitions. I wanted to create a clean Windows 2000 installation on one partition while leaving the other partitions intact. During Win2K Setup, I chose the Delete partition option on Setup's disk-management screen—and much to my dismay, all four partitions disappeared. I've used a few disk utilities to examine the disk and all my data seems to be intact. Can I rewrite the lost partition entries to recover the partition information?
A third-party data-recovery tool such as Ontrack's EasyRecovery might be useful in your situation. You can download a free trial version of EasyRecovery to determine what, if anything, the utility will be able to recover. (For more product ideas, see Buyer's Guide, "Disk Recovery Tools," June 2003, http://www.winnetmag.com, InstantDoc ID 38937.) If third-party software can't help, you might consult a data-recovery firm such as Ontrack, Data Recovery Services, or DriveSavers Data Recovery.