The simple answer is that you can't manipulate parititons that are already set, by leaving free space between partitions. This changes the way the logical layout of the partitions, how the sectors are allocated and confuses grub. And in the process, you probably corrupted partiton /dev/sda6, which holds the grub reference files, unreadable.
You can leave empty space at the end of drives, not between partitions. You should never manipulate partitions like once any OS is installed, unless you really know what you are doing. The order of partitions should be laid out before installing any OS and not touched afterwards. You can, however, add partitions on the free space afterwards, but realize that if you add primary partitions, then this also changes the logical order of partitions.
Did you make rescue boot disks of PartitionMagic to attempt a recovery? This is the reason why PM asks you to do this, to avoid any disaster and recover if you made a mistake.