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* [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted
@ 2008-03-23 11:01 pat
  2008-03-23 11:08 ` Michal 'vorner' Vaner
                   ` (3 more replies)
  0 siblings, 4 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: pat @ 2008-03-23 11:01 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: Gentoo

Hello,

My brother has a second disk where was two partitions formated as NTFS (the
big one) and FAT32 (small one), but something brakes the partition table and
now there are two linux partition tables +/- the size of the previous logical
drives.

Which SW should I use to recover the original partition table? I think about
gpart, but does it has a GUI? I'm not guru at this :-\

I know the next version is to format whole drive, but there are photos of his
daughter and not backup ... .

Thanks a lot for all suggestions !!!

     Pat
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted
  2008-03-23 11:01 [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted pat
@ 2008-03-23 11:08 ` Michal 'vorner' Vaner
  2008-03-23 11:21 ` Neil Bothwick
                   ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  3 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Michal 'vorner' Vaner @ 2008-03-23 11:08 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

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Hello

On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 12:01:08PM +0100, pat wrote:
> My brother has a second disk where was two partitions formated as NTFS (the
> big one) and FAT32 (small one), but something brakes the partition table and
> now there are two linux partition tables +/- the size of the previous logical
> drives.
> 
> Which SW should I use to recover the original partition table? I think about
> gpart, but does it has a GUI? I'm not guru at this :-\

Recovering will be really hard think, if you do not know the exact
numbers there, it is probably impossible.

But you may be lucky and nothing wrote to the data part. In that case,
it should be relatively easy to save the first partition of the two.
Grab fdisk (the unix one is probably better, it does exactly what you
tell it to do and has better help) and create a single partition over
the whole disk, then mount it read-only (so nothing can get corrupted,
if you do something wrong). You should be able to get the data from
there.

I wish you luck

-- 
When eating an elephant take one bite at a time.
		-- Gen. C. Abrams

Michal 'vorner' Vaner

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted
  2008-03-23 11:01 [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted pat
  2008-03-23 11:08 ` Michal 'vorner' Vaner
@ 2008-03-23 11:21 ` Neil Bothwick
  2008-03-23 11:23 ` Florian Philipp
  2008-03-23 12:18 ` pat
  3 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Neil Bothwick @ 2008-03-23 11:21 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

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On Sun, 23 Mar 2008 12:01:08 +0100, pat wrote:

> My brother has a second disk where was two partitions formated as NTFS
> (the big one) and FAT32 (small one), but something brakes the partition
> table and now there are two linux partition tables +/- the size of the
> previous logical drives.
> 
> Which SW should I use to recover the original partition table? I think
> about gpart, but does it has a GUI? I'm not guru at this :-\
> 
> I know the next version is to format whole drive, but there are photos
> of his daughter and not backup ... .

Try photorec from app-admin/testdisk. It should recover most files if the
disk has not been written to since the corruption. No GUI but it does
have a man page :)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Top Oxymorons Number 30: Business ethics

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted
  2008-03-23 11:01 [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted pat
  2008-03-23 11:08 ` Michal 'vorner' Vaner
  2008-03-23 11:21 ` Neil Bothwick
@ 2008-03-23 11:23 ` Florian Philipp
  2008-03-23 18:27   ` Volker Armin Hemmann
  2008-03-24 14:22   ` Enrico Weigelt
  2008-03-23 12:18 ` pat
  3 siblings, 2 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Florian Philipp @ 2008-03-23 11:23 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

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On Sun, 2008-03-23 at 12:01 +0100, pat wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> My brother has a second disk where was two partitions formated as NTFS (the
> big one) and FAT32 (small one), but something brakes the partition table and
> now there are two linux partition tables +/- the size of the previous logical
> drives.
> 
> Which SW should I use to recover the original partition table? I think about
> gpart, but does it has a GUI? I'm not guru at this :-\
> 
> I know the next version is to format whole drive, but there are photos of his
> daughter and not backup ... .
> 
> Thanks a lot for all suggestions !!!
> 
>      Pat

Try testdisk. It's ncurses-based and easy to use. It saved my sorry arse
twice.

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted
  2008-03-23 11:01 [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted pat
                   ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2008-03-23 11:23 ` Florian Philipp
@ 2008-03-23 12:18 ` pat
  2008-03-23 12:34   ` Liviu Andronic
  2008-03-24  3:30   ` Stroller
  3 siblings, 2 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: pat @ 2008-03-23 12:18 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

Couple of other questions and situation update:
- there were not writes to the disk - this is good I think
- the original disk division was 120GB (NTFS) and 40GB (FAT32) - the fat was
the first one
- and now the sizes are different (the first one around 30GB and the rest)
- is the photorec able to search data in this partition table corruption level?
- I'm going to buy ne disk and to make dd of the corrupted one

Thanks a lot

     Pat


On Sun, 23 Mar 2008 12:01:08 +0100, pat wrote
> Hello,
> 
> My brother has a second disk where was two partitions formated as 
> NTFS (the big one) and FAT32 (small one), but something brakes the 
> partition table and now there are two linux partition tables +/- the 
> size of the previous logical drives.
> 
> Which SW should I use to recover the original partition table? I 
> think about gpart, but does it has a GUI? I'm not guru at this :-\
> 
> I know the next version is to format whole drive, but there are 
> photos of his daughter and not backup ... .
> 
> Thanks a lot for all suggestions !!!
> 
>      Pat

-- 
gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted
  2008-03-23 12:18 ` pat
@ 2008-03-23 12:34   ` Liviu Andronic
  2008-03-23 14:12     ` Alan McKinnon
  2008-03-24  3:30   ` Stroller
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Liviu Andronic @ 2008-03-23 12:34 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 1:18 PM, pat <pat@xvalheru.org> wrote:
>  - I'm going to buy ne disk and to make dd of the corrupted one

Maybe sys-fs/ddrescue is suited for this job (?).
Liviu
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gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted
  2008-03-23 12:34   ` Liviu Andronic
@ 2008-03-23 14:12     ` Alan McKinnon
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Alan McKinnon @ 2008-03-23 14:12 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

On Sunday 23 March 2008, Liviu Andronic wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 1:18 PM, pat <pat@xvalheru.org> wrote:
> >  - I'm going to buy ne disk and to make dd of the corrupted one
>
> Maybe sys-fs/ddrescue is suited for this job (?).
> Liviu

gparted is always the first choice in situations like these. The trick 
is to realize that if you recreate the partition table the way it was 
everything just comes back (assuming no destructive write to the drive 
meanwhile, like mkfs.ntfs...) so all one needs to know is where did the 
old partition end?

gparted can go hunting through a disk looking for that info

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

-- 
gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted
  2008-03-23 11:23 ` Florian Philipp
@ 2008-03-23 18:27   ` Volker Armin Hemmann
  2008-03-24 14:22   ` Enrico Weigelt
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Volker Armin Hemmann @ 2008-03-23 18:27 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

On Sonntag, 23. März 2008, Florian Philipp wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-03-23 at 12:01 +0100, pat wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > My brother has a second disk where was two partitions formated as NTFS
> > (the big one) and FAT32 (small one), but something brakes the partition
> > table and now there are two linux partition tables +/- the size of the
> > previous logical drives.
> >
> > Which SW should I use to recover the original partition table? I think
> > about gpart, but does it has a GUI? I'm not guru at this :-\
> >
> > I know the next version is to format whole drive, but there are photos of
> > his daughter and not backup ... .
> >
> > Thanks a lot for all suggestions !!!
> >
> >      Pat
>
> Try testdisk. It's ncurses-based and easy to use. It saved my sorry arse
> twice.

++
mine once.

testdisk is a very good tool.

try systemrescuecd 
http://www.sysresccd.org

which has testdisk in an even newer version than gentoo.
--
gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted
  2008-03-23 12:18 ` pat
  2008-03-23 12:34   ` Liviu Andronic
@ 2008-03-24  3:30   ` Stroller
  2008-03-24 14:28     ` Enrico Weigelt
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Stroller @ 2008-03-24  3:30 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user


On 23 Mar 2008, at 12:18, pat wrote:

> Couple of other questions and situation update:
> - there were not writes to the disk - this is good I think

Yes.

> - is the photorec able to search data in this partition table  
> corruption level?

Read  the tool's homepage. But I'm pretty sure it just looks at the  
bits on the drive and saves any collection of said bits which match  
specification for a jpeg, doc &c file. I.E. no remaining filesystem  
is needed, it does exactly what you need (although filenames aren't  
preserved. I don't know about the other suggestions, so they might be  
worth trying first.

> - I'm going to buy a new disk and to make dd of the corrupted one

Very wise!!

Do this FIRST! BEFORE you do anything else. Then you can always dd  
the drive back to its current state and try a different method if the  
first fails.

Stroller.
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted
  2008-03-23 11:23 ` Florian Philipp
  2008-03-23 18:27   ` Volker Armin Hemmann
@ 2008-03-24 14:22   ` Enrico Weigelt
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Enrico Weigelt @ 2008-03-24 14:22 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

* Florian Philipp <lists@f_philipp.fastmail.net> wrote:

> Try testdisk. It's ncurses-based and easy to use. It saved my sorry arse
> twice.

ACK. If *just* the partition table is lost, but no damage inside
the individual partitions, testdisk can easily reconstruct it
but looking for superblocks (even w/ FAT). 
Used it several times successfully.

Testdisk folks did a great work :)

cu
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt    ==   metux IT service - http://www.metux.de/
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Please visit the OpenSource QM Taskforce:
 	http://wiki.metux.de/public/OpenSource_QM_Taskforce
 Patches / Fixes for a lot dozens of packages in dozens of versions:
	http://patches.metux.de/
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted
  2008-03-24  3:30   ` Stroller
@ 2008-03-24 14:28     ` Enrico Weigelt
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Enrico Weigelt @ 2008-03-24 14:28 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

* Stroller <stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:

> >- is the photorec able to search data in this partition table  
> >corruption level?
> 
> Read  the tool's homepage. But I'm pretty sure it just looks at the  
> bits on the drive and saves any collection of said bits which match  
> specification for a jpeg, doc &c file. I.E. no remaining filesystem  
> is needed, it does exactly what you need (although filenames aren't  
> preserved. I don't know about the other suggestions, so they might be  
> worth trying first.

Yes, photorec is an completely different thing. It scans through
all blocks on disk and tries to find out what kind of files they
might belong to. 

This way you can reconstruct a lot of files if you lost the fs'
metadata (which can happen easily on FAT :(). But this is an
heuristic, not an stable approach. So you have to look through
all reconstructed files if they're really okay.

If just the partition table is broken, you shouldn't play with
this - use testdisk instead.


cu
-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Enrico Weigelt    ==   metux IT service - http://www.metux.de/
---------------------------------------------------------------------
 Please visit the OpenSource QM Taskforce:
 	http://wiki.metux.de/public/OpenSource_QM_Taskforce
 Patches / Fixes for a lot dozens of packages in dozens of versions:
	http://patches.metux.de/
---------------------------------------------------------------------
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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2008-03-24 14:29 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 11+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2008-03-23 11:01 [gentoo-user] HELP! partition table is corrupted pat
2008-03-23 11:08 ` Michal 'vorner' Vaner
2008-03-23 11:21 ` Neil Bothwick
2008-03-23 11:23 ` Florian Philipp
2008-03-23 18:27   ` Volker Armin Hemmann
2008-03-24 14:22   ` Enrico Weigelt
2008-03-23 12:18 ` pat
2008-03-23 12:34   ` Liviu Andronic
2008-03-23 14:12     ` Alan McKinnon
2008-03-24  3:30   ` Stroller
2008-03-24 14:28     ` Enrico Weigelt

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