att

Not sure if it is the right answer (only been using linux for 1 month) but I
had a similar problem. I installed Redhat 9.0 (different than your
install) and chose the default boot loader GRUB. (Big mistake, had problems
a year ago with GRUB on Redhat 7.1; but I am a slow learner) When the
install was finished, all I could get from GRUB was a command line and no
way to start Linux. (at least that I could find). To fix, all I did was
reboot from the Redhat CD, do an upgrade and changed the boot loader to
Lilo. I had to run the update twice. The first time that I ran it, I only
changed the bootloader selection. The update procedure saw that I didn't
choose to add any new packages so exited without changing the boot loader.
So just select any package to add and it will probably work. Good luck.

h ho

If you still are stuck at this late date (7/13/03) and have not done
anything drastic, I believe you can recover.


This means Grub is still in the MBR.

This means that the partition table at the bootsector has been partly


Try Partition Magic, or Norton Disk Doctor, these may detect the error
and repair it for you. Use with care.


Or you could use Grub to TRY to chainload to ME if it is not that far gone:
grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> makeactive
grub> chainloader +1

Ho

On Wed, 09 Jul 2003 14:26:02 -0400, "Buster Ellis"
<buster@mailandnews.com> wrote:

harry ellis

Wont do anything till I'm pretty sure. Have done little except read web pages.


Don't have either of these. However, am curious to know if I move (after
mounting the
three fat32 partitons in Redhat) everything on to 2 partitions, and then
use fdisk to first delete and then create over again the E: partition,
will fdisk rewrite a correct partition table?

The first and third of these led to a request for a pathway yesterday, but
I'll try the second. Thank you very much for your help. Hope to hear from
you about my idea of deleting and recreating the E: partition with fdisk.

Buster the Hopeful

h ho

Another one is Ontrack EasyRecovery Pro, see

http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecovery/

Or google "Partition Table Recovery" to see if there is anything
available as a freebie. Here's my try:

http://www.google.ca/search?q=Partition+Table+Recovery&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&meta=


If you have important data you want to save in your C: drive, then it
is crucial to fix the partition table. EasyRecovery Pro should do it
automatically. Otherwise, you need Norton Disk Doctor, Norton
Utilities, and essentially a Norton Disk Editor to go in to the disk
sectors and manually restore the proper entries. This I've done
successfully a few times in the past, and it wasn't hard at all.

I'm sure there are equivalents now in the Linux world, but I am not
yet familiar with these. All I've worked with is Disk Druid, and only
for setup, and not for recovery.


From your description, here's my picture of your drive:


Windows Linux Grub
ME hda ( hd0)
=================================
C: Fat32 hda1 (hd0,0)
Ext'd Partition hda2
D: Fat32 hda5 (hd0,4)
E: Fat32 hda6 (hd0,5)
hda7 (hd0,6)
hda8 (hd0,7)
hda9 (hd0,8)

I couldn't understand what you are saying above!! Sorry, I really
tried, and I read it over and over... Nonetheless, I suspect it would
not correct the partition table; although one time in the long ago
past, I've purposely deleted a DOS FAT partition, rebooted, recreated
the partition with identical specs, and the partition came back with
all its data as if it was never deleted!!!! So who knows... It's a
risky proposition...


BTW, this is a command sequence


One more needed after these three, and that is:
grub> boot


What exactly was the "request for a pathway" please?


Don't do it....yet. May I suggest.


You however said that from Linux, you could mount hda1 and see the C:
drive's contents. If you can, I suggest using Linux to dump your
data onto another partition (D: or E: or even hda7,8,9) as a backup
NOW before the data becomes inaccessible!

use cp or maybe even dd to copy over whole subdirectories containing
important data.


Ho

harry ellis

Exactly right Ho!


I intend to delete partition hda6. So in effect I've changed the hard
drive information. Then make a partition in the new space. So wouldn't the
program fdisk have to rewrite the partition table? And wouldn't that
correct it?

Thanks for your patience Ho.

Buster

h ho

After some study, I am inclined to conclude that the damage to the
partition table is not major. Your logical drive D and E are
undamaged at all and are in the same state it was before the errant
Fdisk /MBR. Primary drive C is very likely fully intact. The only
damage is limited to the partition table; and this, only to the entry
referring to primary drive C.

Since you don't have the low-level disk editor, I would like to try to
fix it for you if you could send me the disk's MBR.

Here's how to extract it.

1. Start up Linux, and get to a prompt.
2. Mount the floppy

# mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

3. Copy the bootsector/MBR

# dd if=/dev/hda of=/mnt/floppy/hda.mbr bs=512 count=1

4. Unmount the floppy

# umount /dev/fd0


And please send this hda.mbr file to me using h*x*h*o* at* t*e*l*u*s
period n*e*t dropping the anti-spam characters.

Also, tell me as much about this hard disk: Manuf, Model, and the size
of primary drive C.


What I don't know is what happens when you recreate partition E. Since
E is in the Extended partition space, the change is WITHIN the
linked-list logical partition definition nodes, and does not affect
the MBR's partition table which defines primary partitions ONLY (and
the Extended partition per se is a primary partition, but NOT the
logical partitions it contains). I don't know whether Fdisk will
rewrite the MBR's partition table with the correct values, because
there has not been any change in the two entries (C: and Extended) it
has, although we would like it to rewrite the values for C: to correct
the errors we know are there.

Since, Fdisk was the source of your troubles, may I suggest holding
off for now, and consider this experiment as a last resort. But of
course, this is your drive, and of course you can do anything you want
to it :-)


Ho

harry ellis

Thanks for the offer Ho. I'm taking a rest from this for awhile because of
other responsibilities. I'll get back to it in a week or two.

Thanks again, Buster

geiregat jonas

Op Wed, 09 Jul 2003 14:26:02 -0400, schreef Buster Ellis:

Normally your C drive will be OK.
Now, have you read the grub manual ??? I guess not it's there for you so
why not use it ?
Grub has a different syntax to view hd's then we are used to with linux.
Here is what I think went wrong , you haven't got menu.lst of grub.conf in
/boot/grub
Look it up ..
Good luck

buster ellis

Thanks. I'll look when I get some free time.

Buster