How do I recover a lost Partition?

I tried shrinking my Windows 7 64-bit OS volume by 128GB to make room for a new partition and lost it in the process. My harddisk capacity should be 465.76 but now shows 337.76 GB.

I have an attached document with a screenshot of what it shows in device manager. I have downloaded the free versions of Partition Wizard 9.0 and Power Data Recovery 6.8 but I cant seem to be able to restore the lost sectors.

Can anyone direct me on how to recover this partition?

Thank you.

The only way I see to get the space back is to first Shrink the C: partition then create a new partition in the resultant unallocated space. I've found that by deleting a partition any data in it is usually lost. That's different from inadvertently formatting a partition which sometimes can be recovered.

kofiward said:

I tried shrinking my Windows 7 64-bit OS volume by 128GB to make room for a new partition...

Doing a thorough cleanup and defrag beforehand and only from within Win7 is important.

kofiward said:

I have downloaded the free versions of Partition Wizard 9.0 and Power Data Recovery 6.8...

Very bad idea. No two partitioners ever doing things exactly alike, and that makes them incompatible within a Win7 system that already does things poorly in its own ways. You best bet at the moment might be to use a third-party partitioner to re-resize that partition to its fullest and to then try a Win7 recovery. If that works, do a thorough cleanup and defrag from within Win7, then reboot and tell Win7 to reduce its size and add a new partition in the available space.

If I had this issue the first thing I would do is create a System Backup Image.
I would use Macrium free and create the image on a removable HD (USB, eSata, ... whatever you have available).
Continuing on making changes without a backup can lead to more problems.

What do you mean you lost the partition? What were you using to shrink or Resize it? Disk Mgmt will not fail unless you interrupt power, while all others can and will fail except Partition Wizard boot disk.

If it failed during shrink then the data is likely lost, though you can browse in to see if you see it using Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console.

I don't know what it is you attached using Word. It says Device Manager. If you want to help us better then take a picture of the Partition Wizard boot disk drive map showing all listings and attach it correctly following Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums - Windows 7 Forums

1. You have an HP Desktop. Have you made the recovery disk/s you are supposed to create and keep immediately after setting up your PC for the first time? Yes/No

2. As suggested by DavidE create a system image backup just in case things get awry during the repair process now. The image should be stored on an external storage deice. Whatever imaging software you use you must also create a Recover/Restore disk to enable restoring the image by booting into it.

3. Please capture the screen using Windows Snipping Tool as jpg and upload the screenshots. Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums

4. From your description I presume that your system still boots into Windows but shows as 337.76GB. That would mean that a 128GB partition/ volume has indeed been created but not visible right now.

5. Please post a screenshot of Windows Disk Management as it is now Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image
(Please read through deligently and adhere to all the points mentioned therein to post a full screenshot without any truncation and loss of information.)

6. Also post a screenshot of how your drive appears in Partition Wizard. ( The first screen after you launch the application)

Edit: Greg beat me exposing my slow typing - compounded by jet lag due to which I wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning.

That's OK you'll do better with Jumanji on the case anyway.

You only have one partition on the disk as can plainly be seen. The free space is on that same partition. So you can shrink in Disk Mgmt or if it won't shrink enough then Resize with Partition Wizard up to 262 gb.
Partition or Volume - Shrink + Partition or Volume - Create New
Partition Wizard Resize Partition - Video Help.