Partition Recovery Software advice needed.

[#1]

Quote from: Strat

I now have a folder on my NAS drive full of 1000's of anonymous files of different sorts.

If that is the consequence of running some sort of file recovery software on your kippered hard drive then I can tell you from experience you will never make use of anything more than a tiny fraction of those files because it' just too much time and effort.  I'm sure the best strategy if to do as gtowen (and I) recommended, temporarily disconnect your SSD drive and follow the steps to make your old hard drive bootable again.  There is a good chance you can get that to work and if you can you will be able to remove exactly the files that you want. 

[#2]

I cut my teeth on Windows 3.1, 95 and XP

[#3]

I started with  Win 3 then 3.1 Windows for Workgroups
Also NT3.1 at work
I used every one since then up to Win 7 except for Win 2000 and XP 64 bit

[#4]

It is my excuse for deleting the System Reserved partition.
We didn't have them in my day.

[#5]

Quote from: Oldjim

I started with  Win 3 then 3.1 Windows for Workgroups Also NT3.1 at work I used every one since then up to Win 7 except for Win 2000 and XP 64 bit

Almost the same here, except it was NT4 at Uni / Work (Yes the WAG was using NT4 as recently as 2004) and I've touched all later versions of Windows except Windows ME.
I did find 2000 Workstation a stable desktop OS but it was necessary to have a Windows 98 SE partition to dual boot with for gaming.

[#6]

Quote from: Strat

I cut my teeth on Windows 3.1, 95 and XP

Floppy discs for teething rings, (What ingenuity) .....

[#7]

Fortunately my teeth were through by the time CDs came out

[#8]

Just a little final update.
All free attempts at repairing the drive have been met with failure including the facilities of the Windows disc and a Linux CD.
There was nothing life changing on there which cannot be sourced elsewhere so it will get reformatted and put into service as backup storage.
Thanks everyone for your assistance.

[#9]

Have you tried BootMaster?
It's a while since I last used it (4 years?) when I was in a predicament after losing all the partition information on 1 of my HDs.  After hunting around amongst all the free utilities I could find (none of which would get the desired 100% recovery of the lost partitions), I decided to bite the bullet and fork out the cost of a license for the program (approx £20 if I remember correctly - paid via PayPal and VAT avoided by giving an Australian address).
If you google the program name you should find several places to download it from, then you can run it to see if it finds your partition, and only have to pay if you want to recover what it finds.
Edit: I forgot to say the important bit - I got my partitions back successfully with the program  
Edit #2: I just found the emailed receipt - it actually cost $29.95 - so about £17.80 or so at todays exchange rate.
Edit #3: I might be imagining it, but I think the author gives a money back guarantee of success (or I might be thinking of some other software).

[#10]

Take your hard disk & plug it into a desktop using appropriate connectors as a secondary disk.
Copy wanted files onto a USB stick.
Transfer these files onto your SSD laptop.
Use either a Windows or Linux desktop to do this.

[#11]

If the file system could be seen by either Windows or Linux I would Foxy but sadly it can't.

[#12]

Quote from: Strat

All free attempts at repairing the drive have been met with failure including the facilities of the Windows disc

What happened when you ran the Diskpart tool?  Did it fail at the 'list partition' stage so you could not mark your remaining partition as active?  Or did the subsequent Startup Repair fail?  Diskpart is a tremendously powerful tool if you know how to use it correctly.

[#13]

Diskpart allowed me to make the partition active but Startup Repair failed even after 3 attempts.

[#14]

Re Reply #23 above;
BootMaster may be able to recover the deleted 100MB partition ...

[#15]

Bootmaster might help, I've never used it, but I would be flabbergasted if recovering the small deleted partition could be accomplished with sufficient accuracy to render the whole drive back to normal.  I would have thought the best strategy would be to concentrate of making your undeleted partition readable.  What does diskpart tell you about your disk and your remaining partition?  See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415 ; and maybe try the 'detail partition' command.  Presumably the partition is no longer recognised as NTFS?  But if it seems to be an empty NTFS partition you possibly need to fix the Master Boot Record using bootrec.exe /fixmbr http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392 ?