I know this issue seems more Windows related, but I'm hoping someone, somewhere ran into this issue and actually resolved it.

I have a 160GB Sata HD (Pavilion Desktop) that I was trying to split. I used a Mepis32 6.5 LIVE CD to run QTParted so that I could resize the Windows Partition from 160GB down to about 60GB (leaving 90GB for a linux partition and whatever leftover for "free space" partion). After "Commiting," I rebooted and POW, all I got back was a black screen with a blinking cursor. Google searches seem to indicate I corrupted the MBR.

I tried using XP Recovery Console's FIXMBR utility, but came up empty. Here's the real kicker though...

This drive also has an HP Recovery Partition, but I can't boot to it. WinPE, ERD Commander, SuperWinPE; all of these can see the file system but I can't do anything with it (about 8 GB of data; too big for even a DVD).

One particular thread mentioned "Partition Table Doctor" software. Anyone ever use this and was it helpful?

If anyone has any magic tricks... please help?

Take a look at the Parted Magic livecd:

http://www.partedmagic.com/

It has the most recent version of gparted and a partition/mbr recovery tool called Test Disk:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

It may help you repair your mbr. Also, gparted can tell you the current status of your partition structure which may give some clues on how to repair your system. If you have an external usb hard drive, and if the data is readable on your windows partition, you can back up everything to the external drive, which I would recommend before attempting any repairs.

Sweeet... I'll give it a shot and see if it works. Whether it does or doesn't work, I'll be sure to post an update regardless. Thanks for the quick reply too!!!

Kewl utility... but unfortunately, it didn't fix my problem. As a matter of fact, it made it worse. After running the MBR fix utility, it somehow removed the existing "HP Recovery Partition" and left the Windows partition + the partition I resized/formated. Here's where it gets even weirder. I ran the "reinstall windows" from a Windows XP SP2 disc, and it canceled itself saying that the disc was not prepared right or something of that nature. So I ran a Windows XP Home disc to see what would happen. Since XP Prof. and Home are treated differently, it doesn't give me the option to repair an XP install... just install a new copy of XP Home on the same partition as XP Prof.

I realized at this point I'm just screw'd and ordered the recovery discs from HP ($16). I installed Linux on the 2nd partition (in the meantime) just so I'd have internet access whilst I wait on the HP discs.

Lesson of the Day: Don't resize Windows XP Partitions without doing massive amounts of cleanup, defragging, and backup recovery.

Did you move the "start" of the Windoze partition ???.

Well, I'd say no, but who knows!! After I originally resized the Windows partition, it was still set to "active" and had a "boot" flag tied to it. But after performing several variations of fixmbr from multiple tools, I'd say the mbr and/or any flags assoc. with the partition were hosed.