gParted Screw Up

[ArkNinja]

Hello,

I have a dual boot of Windows 7 and Ubuntu. When I installed my Ubuntu after my Windows 7 I realised that somehow about 1GB of unused space, so I booted up into gParted to add it to the Windows 7 install. While it was extending the Windows 7 partition, gParted crashed and now I cannot boot into my Windows 7 due to corruption. Booting into the Windows 7 install disk and choosing to repair, the start up repair did nothing (hey, I thought I would give it a shot), I ran chkdsk on the drive and it came back saying everything was fine (which it obviously was not). I booted into my Ubuntu installation and ran ntfsfix, which came back saying to run chkdsk, which didn't really help me at all. I really have no idea what to do, and the only thing I could think of is to reinstall (which I would prefer not to do because of all the stuff I have installed on there). Any suggestions?

./ArkNinja

[NUSHOR]

you should see if a partition recovery disk would do the trick Hirens Boot CD has plenty of nice utilities including a partition recovery tool. Sadly I cannot remember the name of the tool itself but it worked for me before

[Sparda]

Restore from backup?

[VaKo]

Not to fix this, but for future reference, Windows Vista onwards has the ability to expand, merge and shrink partitions on the fly from the disk management MMC.

[Sparda]

Also, doesn't Windows 7 like to leave a block of unallocated space to ensure that bitlocker works?

[VaKo]

I'm not so sure about this, but I know it creates a 200mb or so partition at the start of the drive for that purpose. If it was this you tanked, then reinstall. Lesson of the day, don't try and fix Windows with dodgey linux tools when Windows already has the correct toolset. The XP days are over kids.

[Sparda]

I'd argue the lesson is to backup before doing things with partitions (especially when doing things partitions aren't meant to do).

[VaKo]

That to, even after years of playing around with this stuff I'm still wary about playing with partitions.

[Netshroud]

I'm also still wary, even though every time I make a backup of the partition table.

[SomethingToChatWith]

Also, doesn't Windows 7 like to leave a block of unallocated space to ensure that bitlocker works?

Yes, it does if W7's installed to non pre-partitioned space. It's exactly for that reason as far as I can tell. It doesn't leave unallocated space (if it does its for compatibility reasons with older disk tools), it instead creates a small partition that it is used to boot the computer.