Help!!! I totally screwed up :((

It's a long story... Not quite, as it happened in only 2 hours, but would take hours more to solve
I have a Sony Vaio. As everyone know, Sony created a hidden partition for latter recovery, around 5Gb. I created a recovery set the day i bought it, so i think there's no reason i still waste 5Gb of hard disk. I installed Partition Magic and saw the hidden partition. I tried to merge it to my C drive at first, but it said something about different clusters - i didn't understand. But anyway, i somehow managed to turn it into an active partition, and now i can merge it to my C drive without problem.
But there was a problem. I reinstalled my video card driver before partitioning, and i forgot to reboot. So before Partition Magic rebooted my computer, it prompted me about a change in driver, and asked if i want to correct something something after partitioning. Agreed.
After 10 minutes, disaster came. It said something about "bad....partition" <sorry i can't remember, as i thought it wasn't that serious>, so i rebooted my computer.
Then the fun began. Windows couldn't start by any way, as some file was corrupted (can't remember either). Desperated, i thought about the recovery set. But that means recovering C drive, which also means my 70 hours of playing Oblivion, along with a bunch of confidential stuffs, would be trashed. I couldn't let it happen. I took out my WinXP pro SP2 <pirated> and installed a fresh copy of Windows to my brand new partition, hoping that i can back up my data before actually using the recovery set - who wants to use a pirated version?
The installation was smooth, and windows started, but now i can't access my old "my documents" folder anymore. I thought the old Windows was still somehow functioning.
So let me summerize: now i have three partitions, 2 partitions loaded with windows XP, my documents can't be accessed, and i don't trust myself enough to do anything else. And my current windows Xp is pirated, which means if i turn on automatic update, it'll prompt me about buying a Genuine version of windows every time i turn on my computer.
My objectives now are:
recover my documents < even if after that i have to format hard drive)
have only 2 partitions instead of three

Please help ! I'm desperated now
Thanks in advance.

 

Just use the recovery DVDs you made to turn it back the way it was when you bought it, I doubt your files will be salvagable at this point. You always have to be very careful when using Partition Magic as it can mess up your HD pretty easily.

 

Pull out the hard drive. Find another computer (desktop most likely). Find or buy a USB notebook HD enclosure. Connect the drive to the enclosure and the enclosure to the computer. Then allow windows to access the drive, get permissions, pull everything off that you can, and reformat the drive.

That's probably your best bet. A good rule of thumb is that if you don't know what you're saying "yes" to, then don't say "yes". Always double check in forums and on reputable websites before performing tasks that may not be reversible.

 

Very good advice. I'll also throw out the obvious, but often overlooked: backup your stuff. If you don't want to backup to an external hard drive, most user data will fit on a decent flash drive. Not ideal but better than nothing.

A number of programs (some free, most paid) that came up in a websearch of "recovering from crash on xp". Acronis was one of the results and I know they're well regarded. I don't know about any of the others.

 

Acronis is good.. At least on desktop drives it works great.
But yes.. I'll second what sanpabloguy said about backups. If anything's important, back it up. The little extra storage won't cost you anything, but will save many a hair when anything goes wrong. Besides, usually important thinks like documents and all can be easily backed up on optical media. Cheap and reliable.

 

ok, so now my only problem is that i need to access my old "my document" folder, but access is denied, as i didn't allow it to be shown by anyone else on my old Windows.
Does anyone know how to override that? After i get all i need, i would use the recovery set and repartition my computer,
By the way, i visit Acronis website, but i don't know what to get? Which of those softwares should i use and how?
Thanks for you help.

 

Are you trying to access it through XP Home or Pro.

If it's home you need to be in Safe mode to change ownership of folders... Pro can do it in normal mode.

Right click on the drive root and go to properties. I can't see it in front of me, but I believe it's under Security tab. What you have to do is take ownership of the drive and all files in it. Select the user name you are logged in under and give it full control. Then apply this to all child entries (not just the main drive folder). Then go to the ownership tab and change the owner to your username. This should bring up a dialog box with a picture of files moving from folder to folder.

Check here for more info... Good luck!

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...cs/en-us/acl_folder_permissions.mspx?mfr=true