Newbie with partitioning nightmare-help please

[Odyssey]

I was installing a 400GB Seagate hdd and so installed the Seagate partitioning utility that came with the hdd. It was necessary to run a utility to enable patitioning and management of large disks, which involved a registry change to my W2k computer. All went OK.

When finished, I turned to a Western Digital 160GB that I had previously partitioned using the W2k partitioning software (which was done previous to the above large disk drive management changes.) It had partitioned to the max allowed (approx 130GB +/-) leaving approx 30GB unpartitioned.

Since I already had the Seagate utility running, I decided to use it to create a useable partition with the remaining 27GB. Bad idea.

When this computer next booted up, the 130GB partition was nowhere to be seen and only the 27GB partition is visible. Distress!!!

Not sure what happened to the 130 (+/-) GB partition, but would sure like to have the contents available again.

For possibly needed clarification:

Original drive on this W2k computer is a 40GB (37 formatted) hdd-this drive was never physically changed or moved in any way

Second drive was the Seagate 400GB, which was then replaced by:

a 160GB Western Digital

Anyone able to tell from the above what has happened and what, if anything, might be done about it? TIA

[Victor Chew]

I would suggest using TestDisk or Active Partition Recovery to see if you can recover the lost partition.

Good luck!

[Odyssey]

Thanks Victor,

Would "Active Partition Recovery" be:

Active@ Partition Recovery from www.partition-recovery.com, or another?

And would "TestDisk" be

TestDisk from www.cgsecurity.org, or another?

do you suggest one being more likely than the other? Any suggestions on use?

Thanks again.

[Victor Chew]

You are right on both counts.

They are both available under [Filesystem Tools] on the UBCD.