URGENT: All partitions deleted (Gentoo Install)

Pelouse · 03-21-2006, 05:50 PM

I have a big problem: all my partitions (except the NFS for Windows) have ebben deleted. I was trying to install Gentoo with the new 2006.0 Live CD...

Is there any way to restore those partitions? They were FAT and ReiserFS.

Any help is more than welcome...

pixellany · 03-21-2006, 06:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pelouse

Is there any way to restore those partitions?

Yes...
Easy? NO

First, do NOTHING to that disk until you have a plan.

There are various tools out there for restoring partition tables, fixing bad file systems, etc. Depending on where you are on the learing curve, it could be a long climb. You may be better off turning it over to a specialist.

Whatever you do, I suggest finding a way to "clone" the drive first.

saikee · 03-21-2006, 07:02 PM

If you can remember the partition sizes accurately or have a copy of the partition table just rebuild it using cfdisk. Done it about a dozen times, from scrach, on several disks, size up to 300Gb and with up to 60 partitions inside. No loss of partition.

pixellany · 03-21-2006, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saikee

If you can remember the partition sizes accurately or have a copy of the partition table just rebuild it using cfdisk.

That's a very big IF....
When I started in Linux, I had some experience in partitioning using Partition Magic. MANY Windows converts don't even have that.

How many time in the Windows world has someone suggested backing up you partition table??

Pelouse · 03-21-2006, 09:24 PM

Thanks for the feedback.

Would you know a good program to do this? My main concern is actually the FAT partitions, as they contained most of the info I need.

I unfortunately do not know the exact sizes of the partitions... but next time you can be sure that I will write this down.

saikee · 03-22-2006, 02:18 AM

That is why I standardise partition sizes and stick to one partitioning software "cfdisk". I only need to write down the last partition size because that is the only that does not in whole unit of a Gb as a check only. When I rebuilt a partition table the left-over should match in size to it.

There are downloadable software, like WPARTNFIX, that can rebuild the disk partitions for you with some success by searching the data from filing index tables. It works best just after the partition table has been changed.

oneandoneis2 · 03-22-2006, 03:15 AM

When I lost my partition table a few weeks back, I ran "gpart" from a Knoppix LiveCD - it found & restored all my partitions, including one I'd deleted months ago.

syg00 · 03-22-2006, 04:19 AM

gpart is certainly one option - another is testdisk.
Also on Knoppix.
Best to fire up a terminal, "su" then run the command of choice.
Deleted partitions aren't really that big an issue.

Deleted (or over-written) data - now *that's* a problem.

Pelouse · 03-23-2006, 07:32 PM

THANK YOU! I was finally able to recover all the last data on the FAT partitions. I will need to re-install Linux (something was overwriten) but that is no problem.

I used Testdisk, althout gpart would probaly have worked as well.

Thanks again.