Is there anyway to get things running once partition tables are damaged?

Geminias · 07-17-2006, 12:44 AM

i setup (hd0,0) and thence did a fixboot which screwed everything over big time. Now i can't get into linux recovery anymore which really blows.

Is there anyway to salvage those partitions? I know i can recover the data itself but I really want to just have my partion table back.

leonscape · 07-17-2006, 05:36 AM

If you have a knoppix disk handly there are several tools on there that can be used to rebuild your partition table.

Geminias · 07-17-2006, 07:23 AM

I do have knoppix. Can you name some of these tools please? I'm currently on a 26 hour no-sleep computer fix it spree and so far i've turned up nothing then i come and read your terrific post except somehow you managed to leave out the point.. what are you honestly thinking? It's like if i were to answer the question i posted with a response like this: "yes its possible, there are tools out there that can do it, go to google there are various items you could search for that might help you."

leonscape · 07-17-2006, 07:31 AM

There are quite a few partition repair tools on the Knoppix CD to try, I found gpart to be one of the best ones to start with, but read up on the docs.

Geminias · 07-17-2006, 07:35 AM

alright i guess it will have to come to that then, thanks. The reason i dread having to use gpart would be because typical linux gives errors all the way through the load so i'm stuck with a command line and I just started learning bash commands.

pixellany · 07-17-2006, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Geminias

i setup (hd0,0) and thence did a fixboot which screwed everything over big time. Now i can't get into linux recovery anymore which really blows.

Is there anyway to salvage those partitions? I know i can recover the data itself but I really want to just have my partion table back.

The only way I would know what was going on here was by reading your duplicate post in the Newbie forum (Not supposed to post duplicate threads...)

You may find it easier to re-install Linux. Note also that if you put GRUB on a floppy, the Windows install is untouched. You can always put it on the mbr later.

Matir · 07-17-2006, 09:01 AM

Try running 'testdisk' from the knoppix disk. Many times I've recovered a bad partition table using it. It looks for signatures that start new filesystems and rebuilds the partition table from there.

Geminias · 07-17-2006, 05:05 PM

Thanks Matir, I downloaded Testdisk 6.4 prior to your post and it wasn't able to fix it. On the site it says it is limited to 128GB hard drives because of something or other and my hard drive is 250GB, I tried it anyways and it didn't work. Is there a higher version on knoppix?

Matir · 07-17-2006, 05:41 PM

The 128GB limitation is on operating systems with 28 bit LBA representations, whereas 48 bit LBA (which Linux supports) allows for drives up to 131072 TB in size. Did Testdisk tell you it could not handle your disk's size? Were you working from binary or source?

Geminias · 07-17-2006, 08:57 PM

I was working with binary with a windows version of testdisk. It said that it found 240 cylinders but that it suspected the drive could be up to 250 or something like that. It said it could recover my windows partition but not my linux one so i let it write the new partition table but it didn't work.

Matir · 07-17-2006, 09:03 PM

Ahh, I suggest trying a Linux LiveCD version of it.