mkswap on wrong partition (help!)

PherricOxide · 12-17-2007, 03:01 PM

I was attempting to dual boot my Windows XP machine, but accidentally ran mkswap on the XP partition. When I look at the partition with fdisc it still says it's an NTFS partition, and I can mount it and view all the files in Linux. However, when I try and boot I just get a black screen. I tried loading up the Windows recovery console, but it doesn't see Windows installed anymore. Considering mkswap only took half a second, I don't think it edited anything except a few sectors. Is there any way to reverse the effects?

pixellany · 12-17-2007, 03:06 PM

Unless someone already knows the answer, somebody needs to run an experiment to see what exactly is changed by "mkswap". It seems possible that it is something simple and easy to fix.

If you can see the files, there is hope.

If this is not resolved by 9PM PST, I may be able to dig further.

pixellany · 12-18-2007, 07:18 AM

It looks like "mkswap" only writes to the first 8 sectors of the partition. I believe that this is the start of where NTLDR lives.

I think "fixboot" in the Windows recovery console restores NTLDR, but I have never had occasion to do this.