Hard Drive Management Gone Haywire

[Injust]

Hello,
Yesterday, I decided to get rid of the 199MB System Reserved partition in my hard drive setup. I had the 199MB partition at the front, then a 150GB data/system partition, then the rest was unallocated space.
Using MiniTools partition manager software, I deleted the 199MB System Reserved partition (and yes, I re-made the BCD and the MBR), extended the data/system partition to the left to occupy that 199MB, and shrunk the 199MB from the right of the data/system partition, because I wanted to keep it at 150GB. This was all done at a boot-time operation.
When I booted up the computer, looked in the Disk Management, it said that the disk was only 150GB in size. There was only that one partition, and it didn't show the unallocated space.
I messed with it for a while, but when I went into Diskpart and attempted to create a primary partition, it said that there was NO space at all.
Using EaseUS partition manager software (I uninstalled MiniTools because I didn't like the UI), I created a new partition with the unallocated space. It always gave me an error "Updating system information failed", and when I wanted to do anything in Windows' Disk Management, it would give me an error that the information was up-to-date, and refreshing didn't work, so I had to restart. When I restarted, it looked like this [attachment 1]. The unallocated space, approximately 400GB, is no-where to be seen. It actually looks like this [attachment 2].

How can I fix this?
Thanks! Sorry for the long post

 

[gregrocker]

Always use the Partition Wizard boot disk which is the only manager besides Disk Mgmt which will not fail in countless thousands of operations we've helped with here. Easeus and all others including PW Home version can and will fail with data loss.

PW boot disk will also give the authoritative read on the disk when Disk Mgmt is in error. So I would boot it now to Resize Partition http://partitionwizard.com/video-help/moveresizepartition/moveresizepartition.html - Video Help.

If there is further discrepancy, I'd run Partition Wizard Partition surface test to check HD condition, followed by Partition Wizard Check File System on each partition.

 

[Injust]

Thanks Greg, for the advice
I'll try it now, although I was really puzzled by Disk Management's readings
Will report back any issues.

 

[Injust]

What do I use to burn the software to mah USB?
EDIT: I realized that all of my USB flash drives do not show up in Disk Management or in the Start Menu But my USB mouse and keyboard work

 

[gregrocker]

Since it's a small ISO file you can rightclick it to Burn or Open with Windows Image Burner. If that's somehow missing install and use ImgBurn to burn an image file.

Do your flash sticks show up in another PC? Do they have a drive letter? Drive Letter - Add, Change, or Remove in Windows 7 - Windows 7 Forums

See if they show up in PW then run Check File System on them which can resolve issues.

Your PC may have some corruption so I'd also run SFC /SCANNOW Command

 

[Injust]

Okay, here's an update:
In my PC, it will NOT recognize ANY flash drive I plug in (I have 4 different ones). Disk Management doesn't show them either.
Second, I created the PW Boot Drive on my USB using computer 2. I booted it with computer 2. It works fine. (I used Universal USB Installer to burn the ISO). I try it on my problematic computer (manually overriding the selection and manually booting from the USB), and it SKIPS the USB and boots straight to the Windows OS. I try with a Windows install USB I made a long time ago, it works FINE.
Did a CHKDSK last night, it found some bad sectors, but nothing else. I have the log, if you want it.
I'm doing a Startup Repair right now. Will do SFC later.
Also, will System Restore do anything? I have an image I made 3 days ago for some driver issues and BSODs that were resolved here sevenforums. My only concern is that it will revert the state of the drivers that I modified.

 

[Britton30]

Yes the 3-day-old image would have the corruptions you fixed. system restore may also.
In Device manager, any warning icons?

 

[Injust]

I'll check Device Manager later, doing System Repair ATM. Also, when I plug in a USB flash drive, it makes the sound that Windows is supposed to when it recognizes a drive. So I guess it's not the flash drive's problem. That is confirmed, cause the flash drive works on my other computer.

 

[gregrocker]

It recognizes your Win7 installer USB stick in both Explorer and Disk Mgmt?

If so then run Disk Check on the other sticks. If they don't show up in Disk Mgmt, try PW home version.

 

[Injust]

It doesn't recognize ANY USB sticks in Disk Management and Explorer. Also, I cannot boot from PW USB version. All my USB sticks are functioning perfectly.
PW Home version cannot make changes except for a restart between each one, because it says "Updating system information failed" each time.
I've been stuck on the System Repair showing "Attempting Repairs" for 15 minutes now

 

[Britton30]

Can you force a USB boot with your Boot option menu or from BIOS?

 

[gregrocker]

If you can boot the installer stick but not see it in Explorer or Disk Mgmt then you have OS corruption. I'd get on the SFC /SCANNOW Command to see how bad it gets. If irreparable System Files you'll want a Repair Install.

But first ask yourself how close you have to a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 since you might want to invest in one now following these steps to get and keep a flawless install. A factory preinstall or lesser install cheats you of Win7 native performance.

 

[Injust]

Can you force a USB boot with your Boot option menu or from BIOS?

That's what I tried. I can boot with mah installer USB, but my PW Boot version just skips straight to the Windows OS, even if I force it.

 

[Injust]

If you can boot the installer stick but not see it in Explorer or Disk Mgmt then you have OS corruption. I'd get on the SFC /SCANNOW Command to see how bad it gets. If irreparable System Files you'll want a Repair Install.

But first ask yourself how close you have to a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 since you might want to invest in one now following these steps to get and keep a flawless install. A factory preinstall or lesser install cheats you of Win7 native performance.

I will do a SFC scan later, after my System Repair gets done.
As for Repair Install, I will only do at last resort.
For Clean Reinstall, that's a no-go for me. I've been advised that over 10 times here @SevenForums, but nope.avi Sorry, just a bit stubborn. Anyway, I'm getting a new PC very soon, so that'll be great for all these issues. But for the meantime, just want to get over this problem.

 

[Injust]

Oh snap.
System Repair has been running for 1.5 hours now.
HD activity indicator is lit up steadily.
What should I do? Just wait it out?

 

[Injust]

System Repair just finished.
The root cause was "The partition table does not have a valid System Partition".
Repair action: Partition table repair
Will reboot and see if everything's okay.

EDIT: When I restarted, it said that System Repair needed to run again. I will do that, but I booted up anyway. When I go to Disk Management, I see my data/system partition, plus the test partition I created. No sign of the unallocated space.

When I go to Device Manager, my USB flash drives show up there with a yellow hazard sign, and in the status, it says "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)"

I am running a SFC scan now, and will report back on the status. Also, I will re-run System Repair later.

EDIT 2:
This is last night's CHKDSK log.

Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Hard Drive.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.                         

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)...
  206592 file records processed.                                          File verification completed.
  936 large file records processed.                                      0 bad file records processed.                                        0 EA records processed.                                              50 reparse records processed.                                       CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 5)...
  259118 index entries processed.                                         Index verification completed.
  0 unindexed files scanned.                                           0 unindexed files recovered.                                       CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 5)...
  206592 file SDs/SIDs processed.                                         Cleaning up 1158 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 1158 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 1158 unused security descriptors.
Security descriptor verification completed.
  26264 data files processed.                                            CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
  1132056 USN bytes processed.                                             Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 91041
of name \SwSetup\Drivers\Video_P\Packages\Apps\CCC2\Help\fi\CCC-HE~1.MSI.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 100174
of name \PROGRA~2\HEWLET~1\HP Setup\Images\HP\SEQUEN~1\GOCLIC~1\_GB17B~1.PNG.
Windows replaced bad clusters in file 112430
of name \Backups\EXTERN~1\GRADE4~1\July 13th, 2008\105.png.
  206576 files processed.                                                 File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
  13329353 free clusters processed.                                         Free space verification is complete.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

 157286399 KB total disk space.
 103566460 KB in 119510 files.
    119752 KB in 26265 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
    282775 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
  53317412 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
  39321599 total allocation units on disk.
  13329353 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
00 27 03 00 7a 39 02 00 93 6c 03 00 00 00 00 00  .'..z9...l......
9d 00 00 00 32 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ....2...........
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00  ................

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.

 

[Injust]

Just did a SFC scan, it was clean, even in the CBS log.
Will do Startup Repair next.
EDIT: Am installing updates, will do Startup Repair right after.

 

[Injust]

So you know, in the first System Repair that I did, that it did a partition table repair that took 1 and a half hours? Well, I re-ran System Repair, and it did the partition table repair AGAIN, taking up another 1 and a half hours. So that means that I will NOT be running System Repair again unless it's needed.
What further action should I take?

 

[Injust]

Ok, so I messed around a bit, and completely screwed up mah system
I ran some variation of this command: bootsect /nt60 sys force, and now, when I boot, it gives me the message "No bootable device, insert boot device and press any key to continue."
Also, I realized that the filesystem was changed to RAW And I can't see any of mah files

 

[gregrocker]

Why would you run the bootsect command when there was no indication the boot files were problematic?

If you'd been patient we would have advised you based on your reports to test the HD before proceeding any further, using the maker's HD Diagnostic extended CD scan, followed by another Disk Check. The two repairs can either fix the HD or at least give you certainty about it's condition.

I would do that now before proceeding. If HD passes then confirm the Active partition is C and run Startup Repair - Run up to 3 Separate Times.
Partition - Mark as Active (Method Two)