Disk /dev/hde doesn't contain a valid partition table {Scanned}

[Malcolm Kay]

On Wednesday 08 September 2004 01:07, SW wrote:
> Hi Reuben:
> > > I'm not sure what this means, but if I select the 'w' option, will this
> > > destroy my data on this drive?
> >
> > Yes, but from what you told us from the output of fdisk, your data is
>
> probably
>
> > not retrievable or already anyway, at least recovering it is not going to
>
> be
>
> > easy.
>
> The data is fine on my drive. fdisk doesn't show any partitions but I can
> retrieve and write data to the drive. fstab mounts it fine...I just
> sometimes can't umount the drive because I get device busy, even though
> nothing is writing to the hard drive.
>
> > > Also if I try to do the print option in
> > > fdisk, it doesn't show the ext3 partition I created:
> >
> > ...
> >
> > > Could my problem be
> > > that I ran a program which screwed up my partition table? I ran parted
> > > which told me to run e2fsck due to a problem and then I ran fsck.ext3.
>
> Can
>
> > > any of these programs destroy my partitions?
> >
> > Probably..
> >
> > > What should I do now?
> >
> > Assuming you can afford loosing the data there (for good), I'd just start
> > over. Here is a step by step guide to create ext3 partition.
>
> http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-7.3-Manual/ref-guide/s1-filesy
>stem-ext3-create.html
>
> I really don't want to start over as of right now the drive data is fine.
> I'll use the steps you provided as a last resort when the *#$% hits the
> fan. ;-)
>

OK, it seems you don't have partitions but a file system using the entire 
drive. Basically there is nothing wrong with that.

The real broblem seems to be the limited view point of the backup script;
or I guess I should say, its author.

Malcolm