If you find lost partition you press proced to recover it, if you restart after maybe windows not boot again so you need to fix boot again, if you know dont know how to do that, i advice not do it just keep it windows as it and when you have more time research about it
At this point I'd be happy to just get back to functional XP and go 7 at a later date. If I kill the whole 7 partition I can't help but wonder if I would boot back into XP or get a non-system disk error.....?
Did the XP have SATA support, or was it running on an IDE disk? Check the BIOS. If there is a switch between AHCI/SATA and IDE, and if it is AHCI or SATA switch it to IDE, and reboot. What happens now?
You may find your XP partition reappears, and the Windows 7 is inoperable. The Windows 7 DVD may be able to repair both to a dual boot under these conditions
Take it a step at a time tho...
Just a word of comfort - all the data, etc., is likely to be still there. The next step may be to find a utility to dig out where it is hiding - just don't install anything to the disk.
http://www.easeus.com/
http://www.piriform.com/recuva
http://www.spotmau.com/products/package/full.htm?gclid=CO7BhKT1kagCFQoa4QodvhElCw
Last edited by fafhrd; 10 Apr 2011 at 07:10. Reason: additions
Installing an OS to a HD while encrypted can result in the consequences you are seeing.
I would contact your company IT to decrypt your HD to see if the data reappears. If not, the best partition Recovery software to use once it's decrypted is free Partition Wizard bootable CD Partition Recovery Wizard.
If you cannot recover the partition then be sure to decrypt the HD before reimaging XP back to the drive, without the MBR so that you can add it using EasyBCD from Win7 which works better.
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