If you can offer some assistance, I'd be forever grateful. Thank you very much for sparing so much of your time to post everything in details and step by step reference.
Bootrec total identified windows installations 0 windows#
Total identified Windows installations: 1 1 C:Windows Add installation to boot list Yes No All.
HPFS - NTFS 1279 209 24 38913 48 31 604593085 Total identified Windows installations: 0 The operation completed successfully. Partition Start End Size in sectors FAT16 >32M 0 1 1 4 254 60 80259 I then performed a "Deeper Search" and which shows a Partition Table of: NOTE: Notice that partitions 2 and 3 are marked "D" here, possibly because they overlap? I then ran the Quick Search and answered Yes to the prompt "Should TestDisk search for partition created under Vista?" It now shows the Partion Table as: Within the Command Prompt, I also tried the BOOTREC tool. I was able to open a Command Prompt and can access the D drive (Vista Recovery) and X drive (Dell Utilities), but I can't access the C drive. I do have the Vista Reinstallation DVD which I've been able to boot up on and it allows me to either reinstall a fresh image (which I'll only do as a last resort), or to use the recovery tools.
I believe my data and OS are still on the hard disk, and I'm hoping with some help in correcting the partition definitions and/or boot info, all will be well. I've scanned the web for a couple of days now, learning a lot and trying a few things but so far, no luck. F8 doesn't work, no System/Restore points can be found because they're on the unreachable C drive, etc. None of the standard Windows Repair tools/options are available.
I've managed to hose my Dell Studio 1537 laptop and now can't get it to boot up.