Partition changed from NTFS to RAW

Win 8 installed okay. And I found another Intel video driver that allowed setting my display's aspect ratio. Few apps I've added work, but most don't. The smaller x64 version apparently doesn't come with all the new developer apps.

My single drive was divided into two partitions C: & D: before installation (under XP & Win7). After installing Win8, D: partition changed to "RAW" instead on NTFS. Win8 offers to format the partition when I try to access it, but I'd rather not lose the data.

Win8's command line tools Diskpart, Bootsect, etc, so far are unable to change D: partition to back NTFS. However, D: partition is visible as NTFS, with data seemingly intact, when booting from a Hirens CD.

Hirens boot CD's disk tools probably can save the files, although I haven't tried. And I could format the partition from Win8...wiping all data, but I'd rather fix the problem without laboriously moving the files.

Any suggestions?

Best to tread cautiously when it comes to data. If I were in your place I'd grab off my data with hiren or whayever worked, then mess around.

More info...

Booted with Hirens and started deleting and moving files on D:. Then I noticed some files were from C: partition. Apparently some files on Win8's C: partition are on d: partition and access to D: is blocked while in Win8. Now the UI in Win 8 is non-functional. Maybe I can get documents from both C: & D:, delete the partition, and create one larger C: partition. What a mess!

I use GetDataBack for NTFS to get the RAW drivers data out.

I think it's like for you to replace XP with W7 on C: and then dual boot W8 on D:.

The same thing happened to me. What I did is use Testdisk to correct the partition table without any loss of files.

Did you have any OS installed in the Win8 partition prior to installing Win8.

I had a similar problem. Installed Win8 in my Vista partition without wiping the partition first. What a disaster. It destroyed several of my other partitions - even on other drives. Fortunately I had images of everything.

I then wiped everything , defined new partitions and reinstalled the whole bit. Now things work.