Disk /dev/hdb doesn't contain a valid partition table

LOLobo · 09-11-2005, 01:56 PM

OK, wanted to start this thread before matters get worse...

My set-up is this...
(and it was working before I swaped out this hard disk with a FAT32 one, and now this problem happened when I tried to swap back)

Zenwalk Linux 1.2: Kernel 2.6.12.2
/dev/hda (at the end) and /dev/hdb (at the middle) on ide0, both on cable-select.

#fdisk -l outputs this

Code:

Disk /dev/hdb: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77545 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

Disk /dev/hdb doesn't contain a valid partition table

and I can find nothing in dmesg

/etc/fstab is

Code:

/dev/hda2        swap             swap        defaults         0   0
/dev/hda3        /                ext2        defaults         1   1
#/dev/hdb1       /mnt/fat         vfat         defaults,umask=0222 0   0
/dev/cdrom       /mnt/cdrom       iso9660     noauto,owner,ro  0   0
/dev/fd0         /mnt/floppy      auto        noauto,owner     0   0
devpts           /dev/pts         devpts      gid=5,mode=620   0   0
proc             /proc            proc        defaults         0   0
192.168.0.105:/mnt/lfs/share /mnt/smb nfs auto,user,rw,defaults,noatime 0 0
/dev/hdb1	 /mnt/shows	  ext2	      defaults         0   0

The partition I am trying to mount (and was mountable at one point) is /dev/hdb1 formatted as ext2. It had a single ~40G partition for the whole drive.

I want to recover the table to see the contents of the partition. I have looked into e2fsck & mke2fs, but don't know exactly how to use them.

I just want the data back, and for some reason am having trouble compiling gpart, testdisk, and fixdisktable on my Zenwalk box and on my Slack 10.0 box...

I'm looking for step-by-step support, using tools like cfdisk or fdisk to fix the partition table without losing the data. Thanks for the support!

mgmax · 09-12-2005, 07:02 AM

your partition table seems to be nonexistent or corrupted.

Edit it with

Code:

cfdisk /dev/hdb

and create the partition table as you think it was before.

then write the table to disk and exit cfdisk.

mgmax

LOLobo · 09-12-2005, 06:48 PM

Followed your instructions, mgmax. Unfortunately I cannot access the data that was once there... Are there any suggestions to recover the data? I never formatted the drive, however, am wondering if creating & writing a new partition table made the drive data inaccessible or nonexistant.

mgmax · 09-13-2005, 06:21 AM

No. It only overwrites the partition table, not the data.
I dont know but perhaps theres a tool to guess the partition table.

mgmax

mgmax · 09-13-2005, 06:22 AM

gpart.
http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/user/76201/gpart/

LOLobo · 09-13-2005, 12:40 PM

Thanks... nothing seemed to work. My impatience made me reformat the drive to FAT32.

mgmax · 09-13-2005, 02:00 PM

Why Fat32? A corrupted Partition table and the filesystem have nothing to do with each other. If the partition table is gone, this can happen with *any* filesystem, even with Fat32.

If you reformat it, you give up your chance to restore the partition table.
But thats your problem.

mgmax

imitheos · 09-13-2005, 04:26 PM

As mgmax said, if the problem is just in the mbr (the partition table is bad) then it has nothing to do with the filesystem.

If you do what mgmax said (that is use cfdisk,fdisk,whatever) and make the partition again, then when you mount it you should
have the data again.

Did you try gpart? It can "see" the partitions even with a bad mbr.

Quote:

My set-up is this...
(and it was working before I swaped out this hard disk with a FAT32 one, and now this problem happened when I tried to swap back)

When, you swaped the hard disk with the fat32 one, did you put this disk on another computer or just left it away until you
put it back again ?

LOLobo · 09-13-2005, 05:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by mgmax
If you reformat it, you give up your chance to restore the partition table.
But thats your problem.

mgmax

Unfortunately, before I even started this thread... it seems that I unintentionally formatted the ext2 drive with mke2fs. So looks like I fudged up from the beginning...

Quote:

Originally posted by imitheos
When, you swaped the hard disk with the fat32 one, did you put this disk on another computer or just left it away until you
put it back again ?

No, I did not put it into another computer, I just disconnected it.

orvaquim · 09-20-2005, 09:17 AM

Tanks! I have used gpart and it worked for me.
orvaquim

another 1 · 11-06-2008, 01:40 AM

hi. i have a problem that the windows cd doesn't boot.

another 1 · 11-06-2008, 01:47 AM

i have a problem that the windows cd doesn't boot. and the windows os has crashed. i tried to install a new windows but the cd doesn't boot. so i installed linux fedora 8. i don't know linux well and this is my first time using it. i tried to solve the problem and wrote the command fdisk -l and the result just as you have seen up. Disk /dev/hdb doesn't contain a valid partition table.
i want to repair the partition table and i want you to help me using a clear steps, since this is my first time using linux. and i want to rely on linux totally from now, coz the windows has many problems. and thanks