lost partition table

lost partition table

[ild0012]

Hello folks.

i am using slackware linux(2.6.14 with reiser4 patch) on x86_64 and was trying to install free_bsd on a separate partition.
well, during that instalation , accedentualy i have pressed a wrong key , so my partition table is owerriten by something else , but i realized this streight away and stopped the instalation process .

so in fac rigth now i ve got around 200GiB of data , all mushed up . there were 11 linux partitions without raid.
many of thoes were reiserfs and reiser4.

i have found on some linux distro's mailing list that the boot sector's backup made by the LILO should contain the table . i'm not 100% sure of that , but i believe it must do .

so basicaly i have this backup file, but it exists somewhere in betweent all that mess on my drive .

now the question is how to recover that file ?

obviously i have tried gpart , wich was updated last time back in 1999 , so could find only my swap part'ion :)

i also read about magicrescue  on this list's archive ..but the file i need seems to be binary and i'm still not sure dies it contain the table or just the LILO code .

Can anybody help please , because i think that this 99.(9)% recoveriable !
.
thank you anyway.!

Re: lost partition table

[Vladimir V. Saveliev]

Hello

On Fri, 2006-03-24 at 13:55 +0000, ild0012@raven.londonmet.ac.uk wrote:
> Hello folks.
> 
> i am using slackware linux(2.6.14 with reiser4 patch) on x86_64 and was trying to install free_bsd on a separate partition.
> well, during that instalation , accedentualy i have pressed a wrong key , so my partition table is owerriten by something else , but i realized this streight away and stopped the instalation process .
> 
> so in fac rigth now i ve got around 200GiB of data , all mushed up . there were 11 linux partitions without raid.
> many of thoes were reiserfs and reiser4.
> 
> i have found on some linux distro's mailing list that the boot sector's backup made by the LILO should contain the table . i'm not 100% sure of that , but i believe it must do .
> 
> so basicaly i have this backup file, but it exists somewhere in betweent all that mess on my drive .
> 
> now the question is how to recover that file ?
> 
> obviously i have tried gpart , wich was updated last time back in 1999 , so could find only my swap part'ion :)
> 

You might want to try newer gpart

> i also read about magicrescue  on this list's archive ..but the file i need seems to be binary and i'm still not sure dies it contain the table or just the LILO code .
> 
> Can anybody help please , because i think that this 99.(9)% recoveriable !
> .
> thank you anyway.!
> 
> 

Re: lost partition table

[Christian Iversen]

On Friday 24 March 2006 14:55, ild0012@raven.londonmet.ac.uk wrote:
> Hello folks.
>
> obviously i have tried gpart , wich was updated last time back in 1999 , so
> could find only my swap part'ion :)

Actually, the homepage says it is updated in 2001, and that it should support 
Reiser. Not sure how much that helps, but it should be better than starting 
from scratch :-)

Perhaps someone can patch gpart to find reiser4 partitions? 

-- 
Regards,
Christian Iversen

Re: lost partition table

[Andreas Schäfer]

Hi

On 13:55 Fri 24 Mar     , ild0012@raven.londonmet.ac.uk wrote:
> now the question is how to recover that file ?

I had a similar problem. For me TestDisk saved the day. It can recover
most, if not all, partitions even without the partition table:

  http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Last update was March 2nd. Really a great tool.

Hope this helps
-Andreas

ps: anyway, you do have a backup, don't you? If not, none of the data
is vital, right?

Re: lost partition table

[Toby Thain]

On 24-Mar-06, at 8:55 AM, ild0012@raven.londonmet.ac.uk wrote:

>
> Hello folks.
>
> i am using slackware linux(2.6.14 with reiser4 patch) on x86_64 and  
> was trying to install free_bsd on a separate partition.
> well, during that instalation , accedentualy i have pressed a wrong  
> key , so my partition table is owerriten by something else , but i  
> realized this streight away and stopped the instalation process .
>
> so in fac rigth now i ve got around 200GiB of data , all mushed  
> up . there were 11 linux partitions without raid.
> many of thoes were reiserfs and reiser4.


I have located Reiser3 partitions after overwriting a partition  
table. I imagine Reiser4 would be similar.

The method I used is described here: http://slashdot.org/~toby/ 
journal/110587

Once you have starting sector locations, you can write a new  
partition table.

Tedious but it will work.

--Toby


>
> i have found on some linux distro's mailing list that the boot  
> sector's backup made by the LILO should contain the table . i'm not  
> 100% sure of that , but i believe it must do .
>
> so basicaly i have this backup file, but it exists somewhere in  
> betweent all that mess on my drive .
>
> now the question is how to recover that file ?
>
> obviously i have tried gpart , wich was updated last time back in  
> 1999 , so could find only my swap part'ion :)
>
> i also read about magicrescue  on this list's archive ..but the  
> file i need seems to be binary and i'm still not sure dies it  
> contain the table or just the LILO code .
>
> Can anybody help please , because i think that this 99.(9)%  
> recoveriable !
> .
> thank you anyway.!
>

Re: lost partition table

[Craig Shelley]

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On Fri, 2006-03-24 at 13:55 +0000, ild0012@raven.londonmet.ac.uk wrote:
> Hello folks.
> 
> i am using slackware linux(2.6.14 with reiser4 patch) on x86_64 and was trying to install free_bsd on a separate partition.
> well, during that instalation , accedentualy i have pressed a wrong key , so my partition table is owerriten by something else , but i realized this streight away and stopped the instalation process .


I once did this by running fsck.reiser4 on the whole disk, instead of on
the first partition.

luckily, I wrote down what was in /proc/partitions, and reconstructed
the partition table with help from hexedit to check the exact alignment
of the partitions.

As for the first partition on the disk, I had let fsck.reiser4 run to
completion, fixing thousands of errors, with the various rebuild options
turned on. Obviously this had caused a lot of damage to the file system,
with it being off-set from the beginning of the disk. Amazingly
re-running fsck.reiser4 on the actual partition seemed to do the trick,
leaving only a few libraries corrupt.

Quick tip: I found that about 0x11044 bytes in from the beginning of a
Reiser4 partition, you find the string "ReIsEr40FoRmAt". I am sure other
file systems have similar magic strings which can be searched for using
hexedit, enabling the partition table to be fixed.


-- 
Craig Shelley
EMail: craig@microtron.org.uk
Jabber: shell@jabber.earth.li

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