Help please!!!

I'm sure I've done this before and never ran into trouble so it's not like I wasn't thinking, just something went wrong this time and I'm screwed.

I'll post a fdisk -l to show ya what I mean.

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l /dev/sda
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 5 will be corrected by w(rite)

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x624aa2e0

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 33 265041 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 34 1147 8948205 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 1148 121601 967546692 5 Extended


Ok I had Linux Mint 7 on sda1 /boot
sda2/home
sda3 extended
sda5 over 900 gigs pictures files and important stuff
sda6 sawp
sda7 /
Well I tried to install Pclinuxos 2010 to the same partitions as Mint 7 and basically just over write it (this I have done before) but this time Pclinuxos says there is a bad block and it can't copy files to / (sda7)
I didn't think much of it at the time and thought I would try to install it (Pclinuxos) on a separate 100 gb usb drive and it was a sucessful install.

After booting Pclinuxos I try to access my 1TB sda hard drive and I can only access sda1 .....when I look at /dev/sda in gparted is shows the whole disk as unallocated.

I have done nothing at this point in time other than what I just said because I am very afraid of loosing all my pictures and everything else on that disk....and for those that will say always back up ....if ya think I'm not kicking myself right now your dead wrong......

Please help .....thanks in advance.

testdisk is the standard answer to these sort of things - it scans the disk looking for partition "signatures". Seems to do a pretty good job. Might even be on your PCLinuxos.

Thanks syg00 for the help. i used testdisk to get the start and end blocks for my hard drive , but I am now both afraid and unsure of how to proceed from here.

The last thing I want is to loose the info on the disk. so if you have any more advice or tips for me I would really appreciate it.

Thanks again.

If that data is really valuable you should do a complete backup (clone) of the disk, sector by sector, so you don't lose anything that is actually there. then you can mess about with the copy without fear of losing the original.

From the same site as testdisk, there is also photorec. This does actual file recovery.

You'll need the "problem disk" mounted such that it is not being used for the OS (to avoid any writes to it). You will also need disk space large enough to hold whatever is recovered. (If you buy 1-2 external harddrives for future backup, then you can use them)

Here's the latest. I used photorec to recover my files, but now I have over 600 gigs of scattered files containing .bmp mixed with some png and music and pics all mixed up and in over 1000 folders......any suggestions on how to reorganize this mess the way it was or is that an impossibility?

Ok i deleted everything photorec copied over and tried testdisk again......I must have done something different this time cause test disk worked for me and i have my disk back...........problem solved.

thanks again.

That's almost too good to be true!! Have you purchased your backup drives yet?

To answer the other question: I think that some manual labor is probably needed with photorec. For example, if there is data in 2 place on the drive, and that data belongs together, photorec would not know this---but the user / owner would.