Re: finding tarbal on fat partition [yet another data recovery problem]
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David Wroght,
> Quoting hawk (hawk@fac13.ds.psu.edu):
The original partition table was:
Primary1 Primary2 Primary3 Extended
EXT2 FAT0 UFS FAT1 FAT2 Spare
That is, there was plenty of unused space in the extended partition.
However, FreeBSD can't handle these, so I needed a primary partition
large enough to take the tarball. All of my primaries were taken, so
I deleted the extended partition, knowing that I could recreate it later.
The new table became
Primary1 Primary2 Primary3 Empty Primary 4
EXT2 FAT0 UFS (FAT1 FAT 2) FAT 4
> Are we to assume that you deleted the extended partition because
> you already had three primary partitions before it in the table?
Yes.
In hindsight, it would have made more sense to delete 2 and use that
entry where I created FAT4, or to have untarred in linux while FAT4 was
still a primary, but it had been a very long day fighting with the
machine, and I wasn't thinking that clearly any more.
> What, FAT1 FAT2 and FAT4. Are we to guess that you've tried to put
> all three in the new extended partition?
Yes. I'd learned in the past when DR-DOS shifted my partition table
(1-2-3 become 2-3-4, 4 gets lost. I've seen this about 3 times from
DR-DOS fdisk on at least two different machines) that you can recreate
the extended partion and recover your logicals. It didn't occur to me
that I couldn't make the primary a logical . . .
> I take it the two former *logical* partitions survived, and that the
> singular partition with the backup did not. And that you redeleted
> the extended partition before you tried to recreate FAT4 as a
> primary partition.
Yes. I deleted FAT4, then gave the area from FAT1, FAT2, and FAT4 to
the extended, and recreated all three on their former cylinder
boundaries.
> I think you have trampled on the start of your FAT4 partition if
> and when you tried to make it a logical partition. Each and every
> logical partition has an extended partition table at its start, so
> you should have left a gap before FAT4 when you first created it.
this makes sense, and is consistent with the error messages.
> (This might have allowed you to recreate FAT4 as a primary partition,
> though I have no idea whether it would help in changing it into a
> logical partition.)
> You might as well try. I don't think you can recover the partition
> because (I would imagine, I haven't done the arithmetic) both FATs
> have probably been overwritten by the extended partition table.
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