Interrupted Operation, won't boot

[ragnar54]

Naturally these things always happen at the worst time...last night I'm resizing a partition on an external hard drive and browsing at the same time, which I think had a hand in crashing my laptop. Apparently this happens all the time with Paragon Partition Manager, as Google suggested this topic (Interrupted operation: Insert the Recovery CD - Paragon Community Discussion Forums) before I even finished my query. It says I need to fix the Master Boot Record. Here's where I am right now:

1. "Interrupted Operation" error when rebooting. Windows asked for a recovery CD.
2. Changed boot order from HD to CD drive.
3. Refused to click through my OEM recovery CD because it only appeared to include the option to format my laptop
4. My laptop has a barebones optional OS which I can use only to play music and visit websites. From here I can see that my HD is still intact.
5. Tried http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/668-system-recovery-options.html but OEM CD wouldn't allow it.
6. Bought a copy of W7 from Office Max in an attempt to get to the recovery options screen.
7. It worked, but before I could get to the command prompt to follow http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/20864-mbr-restore-windows-7-master-boot-record.html, Windows recognized a startup problem and offered to fix it automatically...so I accepted.
8. Automatic fix did not work. Not only does booting from HD still show "Interrupted Operation" message, the W7 cd no longer loads.

I'm extraordinarily distraught. My entire life was on that laptop, including my college transfer essay (and on the backup external HD, natch). Any suggestions?

 

[SIW2]

Have a look at the partitions - are they still as they were, and do they contain a recognized filesystem.


Did you boot the Paragon recovery media to see what is going on?


Boot Paragon cd - rt click the Hard drive ( not a partition) and select update mbr.

 

[ragnar54]

I'm not sure...everything on my C/D drives seems to still be intact. The external HD was unrecognizable, however.

Otherwise I don't have a recovery media CD...should Paragon provide that or is that an option I would have had to check before this occurred? Regardless I did send this out to someone who seems to know what they're doing. I just hope they salvage my files.