can't unhide partition

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simple dave

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Hello all

I'm using a multi-boot program called bootUS. I'm booting 3 different winxp installations. Yesterday as a prank, my friend marked all three partition as "true hide" in the boot manager and now I can't boot.

Perhaps I should explained that the programs has two parts, one: a program inside xp that setup the boot manager. two: the boot manager itself which reside either in the mbr or in the first partition first sectors (I think).

I tried using Partition Magic to unhide the partition, but he shows the partitions as unformatted. Also I tried fixmbr in the windows recovery console with the result that the Boot manager wont start anymore.
The computer start as usual, but I get error: no operating system found or some such.

I'm at my wits end. I've got a couple of very important files that I can't allow myself to lose. Any advice? Any program that can unhide the partitions?

Thanks
Dave
 
Partiton Magic comes with a manual partition table editor (ptedit) and you can use any other advanced partition editing tool too.

Set the partition types back to their correct values (0x07 for NTFS).
 
Thanks, Nodsu.

Did it and everything works fine. apart from one partition. It says in acronis disk director "none (ntfs/hfs) or something like this, but when I open it nothing shows.

Tried partition magic it tells me partition table error. And this is the most important partition of all: my data partition. I gotta have it back. is there any program to fix it or at least recover the data from it?

thanks again
dave
 
I think you could access the data with a Linux live CD/DVD that supports NTFS.

I don't recommend using Partition Magic because of its inability to handle partitions created with other software. Some partitioning tools just don't align partitions the same way as Partition Magic.

Is the "none (ntfs / hfs)" partition in Acronis Disk Director on a dynamic disk? DD can't handle dynamic disks.

My rule for data recovery is that you don't write anything to the disk in question. The more you write, the worse are your chances in getting data back. If you have enough disk space (and a Linux live CD), make a raw copy of the partition with dd command, for example, and recover data from it.
 
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