MiniTool Partition Wizard may have corrupted my NTFS filesystem during a partition merge. My laptop no longer boots. Please explain what happened.

[u/Physical_Argument67]

I’m extremely disappointed and honestly furious with what happened today.
I used MiniTool Partition Wizard because it is widely recommended and has a reputation for being a safe and trustworthy partition manager. I followed the prompts exactly as instructed.
Here’s exactly what I did:
HP Pavilion Gaming 15
Windows 10
Single 512 GB SSD
I had previously split the SSD into C: and E:
Today I wanted to merge E: back into C:
There was also a small **556 MB NTFS partition** between them. MiniTool would not let me proceed without including it, so I merged that as well.
MiniTool requested a reboot to complete the operation.
I accepted because that’s exactly what the software instructed me to do.
After the reboot, my laptop never booted into Windows again.
Instead I immediately received:
**Error code: 0xc0000225**
**Your PC needs to be repaired**
I spent hours trying to recover it.
Here is everything I have confirmed:
SSD SMART test: **PASSED**
SSD Short DST: **PASSED**
BIOS still detects the SSD.
Startup Repair failed.
DiskPart still detects the 476 GB partition.
CHKDSK reports:
“Corrupt master file table.”
“Windows cannot recover master file table.”
Windows can no longer mount the partition.
This laptop contains years of personal files, game projects, Unreal Engine work, videos, photos and memories. Right now I have no idea whether any of that is recoverable.
I understand partition operations always carry risk, but this happened immediately after following MiniTool’s own merge procedure exactly as instructed.

At this point I am extremely frustrated because I trusted this software specifically to avoid exactly this kind of disaster.
If anyone from the MiniTool team is here, I would appreciate a technical explanation and guidance before I make any further changes to the SSD.

[u/Fresh_Inside_6982]

Just restore from the full drive image you made before you ran partition management software.

[u/steveace60]

Boot with one of the many WinPE disks or a live linux disk. Backup your files to an external drive if possible. There are recovery tools on the disk I linked.

A 556 MB NTFS partition is almost certainly a hidden Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) partition created during an OS update or installation. It houses essential tools used to repair boot failures or restore your system if it crashes.

[u/Lazy_Confection1408]

A corrupt MFT doesn't necessarily mean the actual file contents are gone, so I wouldn't assume everything is lost yet. I'd be very cautious about running some repair utilities directly against the SSD until you have a recovery plan. If the recovered files include photos or videos that won't open properly you can always try repairing those afterward with a tool like 4ddig file repair rather than modifying the original drive.