Need to rename existing partition ruined by dual booting Ubuntu

[jtsmith1287]

So, I've been researching pretty hardcore, but nothing seems to be answering my questions specifically. Here's the issue:

I tried dual booting Win7 and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Most of this process is automated now, which is sweet, but I didn't leave a unallocated partition, and had to do it manually (not realizing it wasn't the correct way to do it now). The install was asking for, of course, a primary installation, and a swap drive. I had my primary installation partition ready to go, so I researched the swap drive stuff using google, and deemed it safe to just use my primary win7 as the swap dump. Heck is just needs a place to dump random data when the ram is full, eh?

WRONG!

My C:/ is officially named linux-swap now, so I can no longer boot off it, and can't see it in My Computer. I reinstalled win7 over the linux partition in an effort to rescue the data, but that obviously isn't working. Windows partition manager isn't letting me change the drive path (but it does see it there, which is a good start).

So, what I need is this: The ability to rename the partition table to C:/ so I can boot of it, or at least take the needed data off (I have very important data on there) so I can format and extend my "new" Win7 partition.

or is it C:\ ? Whatever... you get the idea.

Ok, thanks in advance for any help!

 

[jtsmith1287]

Right, so my :\ became weird emote faces... just ignore those. It's supposed to be c:\

 

[dodger46]

I find Easeus Partition Manager easier to use and more comprehensive than Windows Disk Management. See if it helps.
http://download.cnet.com/EaseUS-Partition-Master-Home-Edition/3000-2248_4-10863346.html

 

[jtsmith1287]

I did give that a shot at one point, but I'll try it out again and dig a little further. Any other options out there?

 

[jtsmith1287]

So, that tool erased every partition table on my drive. Every one. I would suggest not using that tool. There was 2 menus, and no options. You click "complete search" and it starts to scan your drive for missing partitions, but what it's really doing is trying to repair them as it finds them. In my case, it erased even the partition table I was working on crashing my computer and causing me to need to reinstall and repartition my drive. I spent 3 hours trying to recover the partition table after this and after all that realized I just had to reformat because the tables were overlapping in sectors. That meant I had to choose which one I wanted. You can't recover two partitions that overlap. So, now I have no data and a fresh install. Which I guess is nice, and I suppose procrastinating a backup disk is my fault... but now I have nothing. use TestDisk or something if you can. Avoid this tool. Perhaps the paid version offers more options?

 

[dodger46]

Take it you're referring to Easeus? Guess you're using features that I'm not familiar with, which tool was that in particular, so I can avoid it in future.... Sorry it didn't work out for you, but with such a mixture of partitions perhaps it was just too much.

 

[jtsmith1287]

There was effectively only 2 partitions, but being as it will detect partitions (I'm guessing here) from the beginning of time it say that I've had a few... But I just used the freeware version of Easeus.

 

[dodger46]

Take it you tried the Partition Recovery Wizard? Never had a use for it. I've always used EPM's tools for individual existing partitions and found it very useful. I suspect the free recovery tool will be about as useful as most free file recovery tools, - not very.