Partition vanished... (sick feeling)

[OnEMoReTrY]

I have a 250GB HDD and a 500GB HDD. My 250 has 2 partitions, one is 210GB and its where i keep my vista installation with all my data etc. The 40GB partition has an XP installation on it but nothing else. I wanted to put OS X X86 on the 40GB partition and dual boot with vista. I booted from the OS X cd and opened disk utility. It saw all the partitions. I selected the 40GB partition and hit erase with mac os x journaled. The second I did that I got an error that said, "invalid arguement" and then all my partitions dissapeared. I rebooted and i cant even see my 250GB HDD anymore... All of my data was on it. WTF happened? I booted to the vista CD and tried to repair and make a new MBR, but it doesnt even find my 250GB HDD. I am completely sick. Is there anyway for me to get my data off of it when it doesnt even show anywhere? Please help me =(

 

[robisbell]

you told it to erase the partition and that it was a Mac OS Journaled partition, and it was XP. you've bricked the drive pretty much.

 

[OnEMoReTrY]

Originally posted by: robisbell
you told it to erase the partition and that it was a Mac OS Journaled partition, and it was XP. you've bricked the drive pretty much.

I'm pretty sure it asked me what I wanted it to be after it erased it. I followed the FAQ and it said to select Mac OS journaled. Also I can see the HDD in disk utility within windows, but the drive itself does not appear in my computer or when booting up from my windows CD. I am looking for a way to rebuild the partition without losing the data.

 

[GullyFoyle]

Try using TestDisk, it helped me when I messed up my large HD by trying to use it with Win XP with no Service packs.

They have a lot of on-line step by step instructions too.

This is good freeware, not crippled "try ware" or spam or virus laden crap. (Which you'll see a lot of if you scan for "fix partition")