What has surprised me, regarding your idea of not using the Windows Disk Manager, is that I have placed the hard disk in another computer and after running the Windows XP Disk Manager, all the disk partitions have disappeared, without performing operation. "Only booting Disk Manager" why? In addition, the same thing has happened with just starting Acronis Disk Director without performing any operation on the hard disk, why?
I have recovered them with EaseUS Partition Master.