Big problem with partitions
 

Hello! A few days ago to create a partition about 20 GB on a 300 GB hard drive to try LInux MInt 9. I like it and deleted the fedora partition [I had some issues with this version of fedora] to extend the partition of mint. I could not, as I said in gparted "Cannot Have overlapping partitions." Search google and I found testdisk. The run on Widnows and started playing around to see if they managed. When I restart Error 15 and then said that the filesystem was not enforceable. Below that I get grub rescue>. I'm on the liveCD of fedora, and do not know how to fix this mess. I think we can fix, because it changes the structure of the partitions, do not delete any that I remember [I feel so much data to hypothetical, but I went to the bag and I did not notice anything]. GParted shows me everything as Unallocated, and I'm starting to get nervous.

P.D. I have no accent or other signs because the liveCD is set to U.S. keyboard, and I-ve got a Spanish keyboard.

Somebody can help me?

Thanks!

It has been translated from Spanish by Google Translate, so probably there'll be some mistakes.

Try to boot a slax CD and see how far you get.

Do a partition check with cfdisk and see if you find something strange.

Newbies should stick to trusted Linuxes such as Slackware, Red Hat, Knoppix, Mandriva, Debian, and such and when theyt get familiar with the penguin, start experimenting with the obscure Linuxes.

I executed cfdisk in the liveCD of fedora [I am in it right now] and it says me

FATAL ERROR: Cannot open disk drive
Press any key to exit cfdisk

If I do it as root it is what it says

FATAL ERROR: Bad primary partition 0: Partition ends after end-of-disk
Press any key to exit cfdisk

Testdisk is the answer, but it can find previously deleted partitions as well. You have to make the decision on what's good and what isn't. Try it again, and see what it says - it won't update the disk until you tell it to.
How did you do the resize of the partition ?. If it merely changed the partitions (say with fdisk), your data is probably safe. If it involved a mkfs (say gparted), then you have real trouble, and at least some data loss.
Mint is a Ubuntu derivative - hardly obscure.

At this point it may well be easiest to just delete the partition table
and re-install Mint if you don't have a bunch of personal data on there.
If you have a bunch of personal data you need to recover, boot from a
rescue disk. Run fdisk -l and write down the details of any partitions
listed. The trick to recovery is that you'll need to figure out where
your Mint partition started. Then, delete all partitions and recreate
a partition with the same starting point as the Mint partition and at
least as big as the Mint partition was. Trying mounting it and peruse
the files to see if everything is showing up OK. If so, you can look
at df -h and see if the partition can be made smaller without any risk
of being smaller than the filesystem, once rounding and possible differences
between binary and decimal counting are considered.

If this doesn't work, it probably means you know longer know where the
partition actually started. testdisk may be able to help at that point.

If the data is very valuable, the very first thing to do is to make
an exact copy of the disk using "dd". Always maintain an unaltered
copy of any disk you are trying to recover. It's always possible that
your recovery efforts will make it HARDER to recover, so you always want
to be able to get back to where your recovery efforts started.

Linux Mint isn't exactly obscure or unsuited to new Linux users.

Big-problem-with-partitions
 

Don't think Fedoea's very obscure either ....

However: Hello, Pepito. I had a problem like this recently, not exactly the same, and it is now solved, and I may be able to help. Could you give some more information?

You mentioned Windows at one point. Do you have Windows installed?
If so, can you boot it? (run it)
how many Windows partitions do/did you have? (C:, D: etc.)
what version of Windows? (XP, Vista, 7)

I think you said you had been running Fedora, and deleted it.
What did you use to partition the disk to install Fedora? GParted or the Fedora installation?
Were you running Fedora and Windows side-by side (dual boot)?

Stopping the questions just now. If you would answer them, I'll take it further.

------------------------

PS I had a lot of help from TechGuy support forums, linux section. If you would like to see that thread, look at
http://forums.techguy.org/showthread...2&goto=newpost.

(This link worked for me a minute ago, but if it doesn't work for you, try
http://forums.techguy.org/linux-unix...ml#post7412701.)

I had Windows 7 in /dev/sda1 . I had Windows 7, Mint and Fedora in triple boot with Mint's grub. I uninstalled fedora, and after that all was working perfectly. The problem was that gparted said me that I can't resize the mint partition because of overlapping partitions. So I executed TestDisk, and I selected some options there. I don't know what I chose, but after that I had /dev/sda1 of 1 KB for Linux, and 1 GB of Swap.

I think that the best option is to format the whole disk and start from 0.

If you really are just reformatting your disk, then you can ignore this.
About partition overlap.

Pepito1, thank you for the info. You seem to have had almost exactly the same setup as I did, except mine was Vista and I didn't have the full installation DVD. If you do, then it does seem to be the best idea to reformat and do it from scratch. The general opinion seems to be that it is best to do the partitioning before you install any operating system. I couldn't do that, having only a recovery DVD.

Good luck to you! Please come back and tell us how you get on, and if you need any help, just ask ...

2ck - that link is very interesting. I look forward to reading the article, just to further my education. Thank you.

In the bad old days we used to leave some free space between partitions when installing a variety of OSes so their different ideas of good places to start and finish (cylinder rounding?) didn't result in them mangling each other's space.

Sorry for being late as I just got the mail.

If you have not change anything yet and the old partition table data is available (from separate file, I keep one on different disk, learn hard way) then you can recreate the old partition. Recover what you can and then change the partition table back with Mint. The partition table can be updated with fdisk on live cd. rescuecd is my favorite.

You might have damaged the first sector of the disk which holds MBR. In that case first try to load first sector by searching for MBR and using dd command. Then update the partition table. Remember that you do not write to any other sector.

Finally I just erased the whole disk. It was the easiest option.

Thak you for all your help.

IMNRHO, Slackware is the 3rd from the last distro for beginners. Debian, much as I love it, its packaging, its policy that makes its packaging work, & its derivatives, is maybe the 4th or 5th worst -- for beginners. (#1 & 2 are LFS & Gentoo.) RHEL (I assume that's what you mean) costs $$, is primarily for business -- RHEL, & is very server oriented. Knoppix, the last time I looked, is still a live CD 1st, & an installable distro 2nd. It's been so long since anyone has even asked about Mandriva, that I have nothing good or bad the say about it.

If you're wondering how I came by such strong opinions, for the last 6 years I have led the HLUG Weekly Wednesday Linux Workshop & helped hundreds of beginners choose & install their 1st distros.

I did yet another MEPIS install last night, & it is still the easiest I've seen.

(Advice for Beginners)
If aren't lucky enough to live in Houston, find a local LUG & mentor. Use what your mentor uses or what s/he recommends.

In Houston your best choices are:

1. MEPIS -- I am available for support by e-mail, phone, & in person 2ce a week.
2. Linux Mint -- Charles Olsen, Host of
   Linux Mint Podcast Project is an active member of HLUG & leads our monthly Linux 101 meeting
3. *buntu -- multiple active HLUG members use one of the 'buntus
4. If you're server/business oriented, we can do a CentOS install.
5. I have a Gentoo guy & a FreeBSD guy available, but I don't recommend them for the normal beginner.