While using dual boot my one of windows partition was lost. i.e. I formatted it for some purpose and could not formated it instantly due to some reason, after some days it was not shown at Linux system! To search for this I ran "Lost Partition Tool" in "Expert Tools". In this search process my Linux partitions or partition table were lost/deleted!

Is there any procedure to recover that?

Whatever I have done so far in this regard is appended below:

I have rebooted the system with Linux Suse 11.0 CD into the drive. During booting process while clicking "Automatic Repair" it showed a message:

Activate Swap Partition /dev/sda5

The Partition /dev/sda5 has the file system ID130 and contain a valid swap area. Activating this partition increases the performance of repair tool.

Activate the Swap Area: Yes No. (I clicked the Yes button)

After that it went on checking the system and showed:

Check fstab entries
Scanning for valid Linux partitions
Valid Linux Partitions were found
/dev/sda2, /dev/sda6, /dev/sda7

After this intimation an error message showed as below:

No Mountable partition found.

Could not detect any mountable partitions in your system. Probably there is no valid Linux system on this computer. If you are sure that you installed a Linux system, pres Retry Scanning. Otherwise skip scanning the system and start a new installation.

I clicked Retry.

After that it showed system check 100% and stopped doing anything. I clicked OK and went on running "Installing new boot loader" from expert tools.

It showed:

No valid root partition found. Go back and select all scan options. Afterwards, restart scanning.

I clicked OK but it does nothing.

Then I ran "Expert Partitioner"

It showed following table:

/dev/sda 55.8 GB WDC-WD600VF-75HD
/dev/sda1 9.7 GB HPF/NTFS
/dev/sda2 29.2 GB Linux Native (where as this was actually window's lost partition to whom I was searching for in the beginning!)
/dev/sda3 16.8 GB Extended
/dev/sda5 1.4 GB Linux Swap
/dev/sda6 6.5 GB Linux Native
/dev/sda7 8.8 GB Linux Native

Initially there was written nothing under "Mount Point" Column. After following the system instructions it started showing "Swap" against /dev/sda5 1.4 GB Linux Swap!

After that system started showing:

"Preparing your hard disk" and it started taking time. I aborted this process before it could end up. Should this process let to be completed or not? Will it fix the issue or could it lead to a bigger disaster?

You could use Test Disk. It is available in the System Rescue CD Linux distribution.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

Thank you Stress Junkie for your concern.

But I am afraid that this procedure could work on Linux operating system! Where as I don't have Linux in operation at my Lap Top. Now I am working in Windows! If you could please see at my first post and could suggest that will the process I was following up with installation CD of Open Suse 11.0 could solve the issue? Then it would be a very easy solution for this problem!

the first step is download the OpenSUSE 11.3 dvd ( 11.0 is past it's end of life )
then download and burn to cd "SystemRescueCD "
both of these can be done on a windows OS
run the systemrescue cd and see what it shows


but mostlikely you will need to reinstall it ,if it is not just a messed up table
it is mostlikely lost but if you only deleated the partition and did not fully reformat it. It might be recoverable ( a deleted partition table
but i would not bet on that .

I have run system rescue from my Linux Installation DVD. And from that "Rescue Installed System". It takes me to command prompt "Rescue:~#". I have tried to get a copy of my 2 important folders No 1. Local folder of Evolution Mail. and 2. Documents folder in /home/MA. If I have copies of these two folders I can just reinstall the whole system simply and when the Suse is in working I can copy back on it the old folders.

Can you tell me the terminal commands through which I can navigate to the required folders and then get a copy of them?

Dear John VV as advised I have downloaded Linux OpenSUSE 11.3 DVD. Thrugh that DVD installed that version. It boots with it but it asks for "login password"!!! where as I never entered any password while installation! What could be done to pass through this hurdle now?

???
the dvd did ask you to make a root account
that password IS THE ROOT PASSWORD

suse for some very odd reason uses the root password for the first normal account ( i think to be Microsoft like)

IT IS ADVISED that you change that ASAP

login using the root password
then CHANGE the root password and leave the first normal user's password the same

Thank you for your immediate advise dear John VV.

I do not remember if I have put any password or root account name at the time of installation. However, even if I had entered some password or root account it must be one of the usual account names or passwords which I use during my normal installations or things like that. Thats how I can get through to any account made by me at anywhere on net i.e. facebook, youtube etc.

But unfortunately in this case no such account name or password is working!!

Is there any procedure so that we could by pass this password? or can we recover that missed or forgotten password or account name as we normally get recovered in windows systems?

The version of my Linux is OpenSuse 11.3 "Teal"

Thank you.