Every time one of these threads starts, it is too late to tell the poster that they should not have done what they did! The only option at that point is to use a data recovery tool hoping to get some of the data back.
So, I am starting a thread hoping to tell people how they can avoid the disaster.
Please DO NOT use a partitioning tool (Partition Magic, parted magic, GParted, Disk Director, ...) to:
Move, resize from left, or merge a partition that contains data.
Any of these three modifications requires a temporary relocation of the contained data.
The relocation takes a long time (see post 15). If there is an error, there is no undo!
Instead, DO:
From the OS, copy the data to a temporary location first.
Then, delete the partition(s) you are manipulating.
Then, create the partition(s) the way you want.
Now, again in your OS, restore the data to the modified partition.
WHY
The paritioning tool does all of it in one shot. This makes it a very risky function. If there is a single error in the data move phase, the whole function has failed. But, I have not seen any partitioning tool that can recover from such an error, or offer an undo choice.
If we break down each of the functions into logical phases and execute those phases in sequence, we have control over everything. If there is an error when we copy the data from a partition to another, the source data is still there. We have not deleted it yet. So, we can always attempt it again. More importantly, we have not lost the data.
So, I am starting a thread hoping to tell people how they can avoid the disaster.
Please DO NOT use a partitioning tool (Partition Magic, parted magic, GParted, Disk Director, ...) to:
Move, resize from left, or merge a partition that contains data.
Any of these three modifications requires a temporary relocation of the contained data.
The relocation takes a long time (see post 15). If there is an error, there is no undo!
Instead, DO:
From the OS, copy the data to a temporary location first.
Then, delete the partition(s) you are manipulating.
Then, create the partition(s) the way you want.
Now, again in your OS, restore the data to the modified partition.
WHY
The paritioning tool does all of it in one shot. This makes it a very risky function. If there is a single error in the data move phase, the whole function has failed. But, I have not seen any partitioning tool that can recover from such an error, or offer an undo choice.
If we break down each of the functions into logical phases and execute those phases in sequence, we have control over everything. If there is an error when we copy the data from a partition to another, the source data is still there. We have not deleted it yet. So, we can always attempt it again. More importantly, we have not lost the data.
Last edited: