VERY OT, But this guy really needs help (PT clobbered)
Mike McCarty
mike.mccarty at sbcglobal.net
Fri Feb 17 15:50:07 UTC 2006
Chasecreek Systemhouse wrote:
> On 2/17/06, Mike McCarty <mike.mccarty at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>>Over on the Debian lists is a guy who clobbered his partitions
>>last night, late. I spent a few hours poring over his information
>
>
> His partition table/disk label is destroyed most likely.
>
> Is this a dual boot or linux only laptop? Can he just try restoring
> grub using grub-install off a recovery CD? I'm at a loss for helping
> because I have no idea what you tried thus far or what the actual
> events were leading up to this situation.
Of course you are at a complete loss, since I provided no
concrete information. First, I wanted to see whether there
were a volunteer helper. We can take this off-list, unless
you think that the others on Fedora might benefit enough.
I don't see any reason cfdisk needed to write to his /home
partition, even to rewrite the geometry information.
Here are the relevant dumps of his PT...
>
> Here's my partition table now, in a couple different formats:
>
> cfdisk 2.11u
>
> Disk Drive: /dev/hda
> Size: 30005821440 bytes, 30.0 GB
> Heads: 15 Sectors per Track: 63 Cylinders: 62016
>
> Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> hda5 Boot Logical Linux 4702.45*
> hda6 Boot Logical Linux 1000.10*
> hda7 NC Logical Linux ext3 [/home] 14999.98*
> hda8 Logical Linux swap 511.91
> hda2 Boot Primary Linux ext3 [/] 5000.01
> hda1 Boot Primary Win95 FAT32 (LBA) 3790.89
> Primary Free Space 0.49
>
>
> Partition Table for /dev/hda
>
> First Last
> # Type Sector Sector Offset Length Filesystem Type (ID) Flags
> -- ------- -------- --------- ------ --------- ---------------------- ---------
> 3 Primary 0 41434469 63 41434470 Extended (05) None (00)
> 5 Logical 63* 9184516* 63 9184454* Linux (83) Boot (80)
> 6 Logical 9184517*11137831* 63 1953315 Linux (83) Boot (80)
> 7 Logical 11137832*40434659 1#29296828* Linux (83) None (00)
> 8 Logical 40434660 41434469 63 999810 Linux swap (82) None (00)
> 2 Primary 41434470 51200099 0 9765630 Linux (83) Boot (80)
> 1 Primary 51200100 58604174 0 7404075 Win95 FAT32 (LBA) (0C) Boot (80)
> Primary 58604175 58605119 0 945 Free Space None (00)
>
> I didn't print the partition table before the changes, but it would
> have looked like this, gotten by deleting the two new partitions in
> cfdisk (without saving the changes):
>
> cfdisk 2.11u
>
> Disk Drive: /dev/hda
> Size: 30005821440 bytes, 30.0 GB
> Heads: 15 Sectors per Track: 63 Cylinders: 62016
>
> Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Pri/Log Free Space 5702.57*
> hda5 NC Logical Linux ext3 [/home] 14999.98*
> hda6 Logical Linux swap 511.91
> hda2 Boot Primary Linux ext3 [/] 5000.01
> hda1 Boot Primary Win95 FAT32 (LBA) 3790.89
> Primary Free Space 0.49
>
> Partition Table for /dev/hda
>
> First Last
> # Type Sector Sector Offset Length Filesystem Type (ID) Flags
> -- ------- -------- --------- ------ --------- ---------------------- ---------
> Pri/Log 0 11137831* 0#11137832* Free Space None (00)
> 3 Primary 11137832*41434469 0 30296638* Extended (05) None (00)
> 5 Logical 11137832*40434659 1#29296828* Linux (83) None (00)
> 6 Logical 40434660 41434469 63 999810 Linux swap (82) None (00)
> 2 Primary 41434470 51200099 0 9765630 Linux (83) Boot (80)
> 1 Primary 51200100 58604174 0 7404075 Win95 FAT32 (LBA) (0C) Boot (80)
> Primary 58604175 58605119 0 945 Free Space None (00)
>
>
>
>>> Well, you are the one who did things. Did you keep a written
>>> log of your actions and what happened?
>
>
> The exact actions I took were to run boot into knoppix, then:
> cfdisk /dev/hda
> move cursor onto unused space
> n (new partition)
> l (logical)
> Size (in MB): 1000
> e (end)
> move cursor onto unused space
> n (new partition)
> l (logical)
> Size (in MB): 4702.47 (all the remaining space)
> e (end)
>
> I mounted the root partition and changed hda5 and hda6 to hda7 and
> hda8, and ran update-grub while chrooted into the root partition
> (which I later realized was unnecessary, since the root partition
> didn't change).
>
> One thing I noticed is that the home partition now has the flag "NC"
> which I don't think it had before. Also, I got a warning that since I
> had more than one bootable partition (I now have four), DOS MBR could
> not read this. I didn't worry about it, since I'm using GRUB.
>
>
>
>>> I recommend that you not exit Knoppix until either you are
>>> reasonably satisfied that you are fixed up, or until
>>> you give up in despair. Hopefully, with a little help,
>>> you can get back where you were.
>>>
>>> We're here to help, if we can.
>
>
> THANK you. I will remain in knoppix until said conditions.
===============================================================
> Here is the output of fdisk -u and fdisk -u -l:
>
> knoppix at ttyp0[knoppix]$ sudo fdisk -l
>
> Disk /dev/hda: 15 heads, 63 sectors, 62016 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 945 * 512 bytes
>
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/hda1 * 54181 62015 3702037+ c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
> /dev/hda2 * 43847 54180 4882815 83 Linux
> /dev/hda3 1 43846 20717203+ 5 Extended
> /dev/hda5 * 1 9720 4592195+ 83 Linux
> /dev/hda6 * 9720 11787 976626 83 Linux
> /dev/hda7 11787 42788 14648413+ 83 Linux
> /dev/hda8 42789 43846 499873+ 82 Linux swap
>
> Partition table entries are not in disk order
> knoppix at ttyp0[knoppix]$ sudo fdisk -u -l
>
> Disk /dev/hda: 15 heads, 63 sectors, 62016 cylinders
> Units = sectors of 1 * 512 bytes
>
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/hda1 * 51200100 58604174 3702037+ c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
> /dev/hda2 * 41434470 51200099 4882815 83 Linux
> /dev/hda3 63 41434469 20717203+ 5 Extended
> /dev/hda5 * 126 9184516 4592195+ 83 Linux
> /dev/hda6 * 9184580 11137831 976626 83 Linux
> /dev/hda7 11137833 40434659 14648413+ 83 Linux
> /dev/hda8 40434723 41434469 499873+ 82 Linux swap
>
> Partition table entries are not in disk order
> knoppix at ttyp0[knoppix]$
>
>
> (I'm including Mike's last message below for the archives, as it has
> some useful info in it)
>
> 2006/2/17, Mike McCarty <mike.mccarty at sbcglobal.net>:
>
>>> Levi Waldron wrote:
>>
>>>> > 2006/2/17, Mike McCarty <mike.mccarty at sbcglobal.net>:
>>>> >
>>>
>>>>> >>First step before messing with partitions: do a backup.
>>>>> >>Second step before messing with partitions: save your MBR on a floppy.
>>>>> >>Third step before messing with partitions: save the first sector
>>>>> >>of each partition on a floppy.
>>>
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > I have backups at home of everything important on the home partition,
>>>> > but I'm on the road right now and it will be very annoying if I have
>>>> > to resort to that... more info than needed though :) . Point taken,
>>>> > backup backup backup. The MBR didn't seem like a big deal to me
>>>> > because I don't have a floppy, and figured I could always rebuild it
>>>> > from Knoppix. I didn't know about saving the first sector of each
>>>> > partition - thank you an I will in the future.
>>
>>>
>>> The first sector of each partition is the Boot Record
>>> for that partition, sometimes also called the BPB,
>>> though that's rather dated and not actually applicable
>>> for non-MSDOS partitions.
>>>
>>> First thing I did with my machine after I got it home
>>> was add a floppy disc drive. Dunno why they don't come
>>> with 'em any more.
>>>
>>
>>>>> >>I dunno what you have in your MBR for boot code, but
>>>>> >>I don't see how you created two more if you have a
>>>>> >>"normal" setup. With a normal setup, you can only
>>>>> >>have up to four partitions, one of which can be
>>>>> >>"extended" and have logical partitions in it.
>>>>> >>You already had three partitions, so how did you
>>>>> >>add two more? I suppose that hda5 and hda6 are inside
>>>>> >>of an extended partition you created before. Or are
>>>>> >>you using LVM? If you use LVM, I can't help you much
>>>>> >>if at all.
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>What does fdisk say?
>>>>> >>What were the start/end addresses before you changed the PT?
>>
>>>
>>> The stuff to look at is the start/end disc addresses for the
>>> partitions, and the types. What I see here does not indicate
>>> that you simply moved some partitions down, unless cfdisk
>>> actually copied a bunch of data. That would have taken a
>>> significant amount of time. E.g. to copy /home to hda7 would
>>> require copying 15 GB which would take several minutes.
>>>
>>> I hope you understand that I'm sitting here reading this stuff
>>> and trying to make some sense of it. I know you are on
>>> tenterhooks, but I haven't gone away.
>>>
>>> Anyway, it'll take a little while to figure out what is likely
>>> to have happened. I'm not real familiar with cfdisk.
>>>
>>> Also, there may be others out there more familiar with cfdisk
>>> who can help.
>>>
>>> Hang in there. As Red Green says, "We're all in this together,
>>> and I'm pullin' for you."
>>>
>>> Anyway, just sent this note so you wouldn't feel abandoned
>>> or lost, at least not just yet.
Mike
--
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