Windows 7 Disk Management utility allows you to resize existing hard disk partitions non-destructively, without the aid of any third-party tool. Before running the tool, it is however strongly recommended to backup all the important data. The post-effects of resizing the partitions can sometimes be corrupt file system structures. As a result, your partition(s) may become completely inaccessible and cause data loss situations. To recover from such problems, you need to restore from a suitable backup, if available or use a Windows Data Recovery solution that can recover lost data.

As an instance of such problems, you can consider a practical situation when you try to resize two partitions on a Windows 7 based computer. You shrink the frist partition by A GB and extend the second one by the same value. The next time, when you try to access the second partition (that has been extended), it is longer accessible with an error as below:

“<drive name>:\ is not accessible The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.”

You cannot access the data stored in this partition.

Cause

This issue can occur in Windows 7 computer if one or more of the file system structures or partition table have got corrupted due to partition resizing.

Solution

To resolve this behavior, you are suggested to try these solutions:

You can try repairing the file system using chkdsk with /f switch. However, it is strongly recommended to run this tool only if you have a full data backup. To do so, click 'Start' and then 'Run'. You can then type 'chkdsk /f <drive name>' in the 'Open' box and click OK. Here, the drive name should be exactly what is appearing in error message. Alternatively, you can opt for deleting the corrupt partition provided the backup is available. If no good backup exists, you should consider to use a Windows Data Recovery utility. These are powerful and valid Windows Partition Recovery utilities built to scan the corrupt or deleted partitions and safely recover the lost data. The applications are easy to install and use.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Software is a feature-rich and advanced tool that recovers lost, corrupt, damaged, and deleted Windows partitions. The safe Windows Data Recovery tool is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2003, and 2000. The software provides features like RAW File Recovery, Disk Imaging, Disk Cloning etc. The tool supports FAT32, VFAT, NTFS, and NTFS5 file systems.