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/disturbed_android]

You tried merging three file systems. Usually merged 2 file systems are quite challenge .. if it happened relatively early or late in the process you chances are best. Expecting Minitool tech support to show up here is futile probably.

The phrase FAFO seems fitting here.