Windows 7 Urgent help needed....BSOD and Partitions showing unallocated space

[unsivil_audio]

Hey guys, figured I'd ask some experts if I can save this thing before I do a complete reinstall and lose everything. I was messing around with some software today trying to format an SD card to EXT4, and I ended up with a constant reboot loop and bsod. So I plugged the hard disk into another machine (after extensively exhausting my options with windows recovery and the recovery console). Lo and behold, partitions are showing, but not showing allocated space. I'm at my wits end....if anybody has any ideas I would be grateful.

 

[kaos]

hi

what bugcheck code are you getting ?

it might be someinth like 0x0000007b


which i have a funny feeling it might be

 

[unsivil_audio]

That was it. I gave in and reinstalled. Funny how windows let me reinstall to my original system drive without reformatting though. So I was at least able to salvage system files and such (since it creates a "windows.old" folder containing the previous installation). Lost my other partition completely, but it was just media. Not the end of the world.

 

[kaos]

yes u can install another windows at the side of the old installation if u like and the old windows is renamed windows.old
,
this takes up more of your harddrive

if u want to start from complete scratch

back up all your files on an external drive


insert the cd and boot from disc

part of the insrtallation process says about the location where you want windows to be and there is a button that says advanced.

click this and then click on the main drive

click the little pink rubber that says format

this will wipe all files off your drvice then you can do a fresh install



by the way, bugcheck 0x0000007b is inaccessable boot disk and can be a pain to fix, so you prob did the best thing

 

[unsivil_audio]

Thing is...there was no way to back up files. I tried everything I could think of. Gparted, other machines, recovery software. Gparted showed NO partitions on the drive, just unallocated space. The other machine showed the partitions, but they were all unallocated space and not mountable. I knew this wasn't right. I'm just fortunate I still had about 20gb of space on that partition to reinstall windows alongside, otherwise I would have had to do a complete wipe and lose all my data.

 

[kaos]

within the advanced options there is a menu that says extend, u can use this to use all your space again