Hello everyone,

I was trying to resize my C: drive with Paragon Partition 8.5 Pro. As the process began, it gave me an error: "Bad last sector. Use CHKDSK to fix this error." And promptly restarted my system.

Now my Vista is broken. Won't boot properly, so I inserted my Vista DVD and booted from it to try an automatic repair.

It did not work: "Cannot automatically repair this computer." (It won't even list my Vista OS on the screen where I am supposed to pick which OS to repair - the list is blank.)

So then I went to the command prompt from the repair menu and tried: CHKDSK C:

Didn't work. "C: is RAW, and CHKDSK cannot repair a RAW drive."

So I tried my Linux live-CD to see if I could get SOMETHING running and when I got into Ubuntu, I tried to look at my C: drive and got the following message: "Could not mount this drive."

It's there but I can't get at it.

So... what should I try next? I realize I can probably format C: and reinstall Vista from scratch but I really don't want to lose all my data so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

If you really didn't want to lose your data you should have first backup everything to DVD or external USB drive before you tried the partition manager. Now that your HD reads as RAW, the DVD that came with Toshiba will not work because the hidden partition is corrupted. I hate to say this I am afraid you're pretty much SOL. I hope others will prove me wrong. Anyone?

i_Xp/VistaUser

Hehe. Coulda, shoulda, woulda, but didn'ta.

GParted in Ubuntu is telling me this:

ERROR: Current NTFS volume size is bigger than the device size.
Current Volume Size: 96391 MB
Current Device Size: 96390 MB

Does this additional info in any way help in finding a solution to the problem?

(deleted duplicate message)

Hmm.. It appears I have solved my problem.

Here is what I did, for those who may have a similar problem in the future:

I downloaded Linux Parted Magic and created a Live CD. http://partedmagic.com/index.html

Then I booted from this Live CD and used a Linux utility called TESTDISK which is included on this live CD. I scanned the drive, it diagnosed the problem and repaired the corrupted partitioning (in a way I don't fully understand and can't explain.)

Then I rebooted with my Windows Vista DVD in the drive and this time, the Windows Repair utility was able to repair the Vista OS booting automatically because it could read the C: drive it had previously perceived as RAW space.

Thanks for reading all, and XpUser, thanks for trying to help! :)

Cheers!! I wonder if the DVD you used is the same one that came with your Toshiba? Does it have repair facility too?

Also why not make it a habit to backup your files regularly.

i_Xp/VistaUser

Hey,

My Toshiba came with its proprietary Restore DVD (which includes Vista and all the Toshiba pre-installed stuff), but it also came with two "Windows Anytime Upgrade" DVDs which have their own standalone Vista installers anyway - I just used them, they have all the same utilities.

As for the backing up - I usually do and actually I was partitioning so I'd have some space for drive image backups, lol.

Oh, the irony. :)

Thanks. I happen to own Toshiba A215-S4757 that came with Vista Home Premium preinstalled as well as two 4.7 DVDs. I was not sure if Toshiba-supplied DVDS include Repair facility as most OEM recovery CDs do not. Thanks again and now do the first backup LOL :-)

BTW I do like this notebook and the fact that Toshiba supplied discs when most comptitors don't (except Dell).

i_Xp/VistaUser

Yeah, it's good to have the option of a clean install with the bare bones or the full restoration with all the proprietary apps.