Windows 7 117 gb Partition LOST after SHRINKING win 7

[Rovshan Suleymanov]

hi everyone. i use win 7 ultimate sp1 x64. i wanted install windows 8 and make dual boot on my machine. before my c: volume was 267 gb the D: volume was 605gb and E: volume was 59gb. so i began shrinking. on c partiton i had less free space so i thought i could shrink volume d and i did it. new unallocated partition was nearly 117 gb. i created it as a new volume and then i faced thatwin 8 cannot install there i had to shring the Link Removed volume c:. with 3rd party application i resized c partition by adding the new 117 gb volume into it. everything was fine and my c disk was 384 gb after resizing it. then i decided to shrink the volume c: to make a new partition on that drive to install windows 8. i ran disk mgmt toolof windows and shrunk c: . but after a while an error message appeared it closed. and that 117gb free space now lost on my pc. but it seems on diskmgmt connected to my c volume. im adding a screenshot so u could see it. now my c volume shows total 281 gb not 384 gb. cannot see that partition anywhere and i want to get that partition back how i can do it. only disk mgmt shows it but it shows its as a part of drive c:. i want to split them as before they were a separate partitions i have done my backup but i think there may be a way without re-installing windows and without deleting c: partition. please i need it immediately.

 

[patcooke]

There are conflicting data on your images of your disk management tables - there are two drives labelled C and there are conflicting sizes shown. First, I recommend you now do what you should always do before engaging on major repartitioning exercises and that is to back up the contents of any important data. Ideally this should include an image of drive C with your operating system (or at least have a set of recovery dvd 's burned) and a copy of all user data files from other drives (in your case drive D). Also copy any required files from drive E as I'm recommending you remove that also. Then I'd remove the partitions showing as 117.55 GB and 58.59. Then run a full disk check. Finally reassign the spare disk space as required.

 

[badrobot]

I don't even understand why the system allowed you to use the same drive letter twice. Try changing the letter of that C (any unused letter) that you encircled in red and see how it goes.

 

[Rovshan Suleymanov]

I don't even understand why the system allowed you to use the same drive letter twice. Try changing the letter of that C (any unused letter) that you encircled in red and see how it goes.

i think because it sees that as a part of drive c. coz before it was a seperate drive i removed it then resized drive c hoped they join all together they joined total volume of c incread in my computer but in diskmgmt they stayed seperated

 

[badrobot]

You can only merge 2 partitions if the unallocated partition is immediately to the right of the partition that you want to merge with. What you can do is back up D, delete it (it will become "Unallocated") and merge it with C to the left of it. Hopefully, without the partition gap in the middle, the 2 partition C will also join together.

 

[patcooke]

But the over-riding concern must be for any important data stored on any of the drives. It must be backed up before proceeding with these operations which are looking increasingly risky.

 

[Saltgrass]

I can see several problems. And first, Pat is correct in emphasizing saving your data. If the new partition is a copy of the original C: the data may be duplicated in it.

The fact they both say C: and show as the Boot partition I would think means the same partition identifier is being used for both, probably a result of the third party software.

Your drive shows as Dynamic. That configuration is normally for RAID setups. If you did not set it as Dynamic yourself, it may have been done when trying to add too many partitions to a MBR configured drive, since they can normally only handle 4 primary partitions. Thus, more than likely why Windows 8 would not install.