Re: need help on recovering Windows partition
On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 14:38:29 +0000 (UTC)
Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 05:07:47 -0500, Long Wind wrote:
>
> > I play with etch's fdisk, now I can't access all files in Windows
> > partitions
> >
> > At first my partition is as follow and they work:
> >
> > Disk /dev/hda: 20.8 GB, 20847697920 bytes 255 heads, 63
> > sectors/track, 2534 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 =
> > 8225280 bytes
> >
> > Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> > /dev/hda1 2 543 4353615 5 Extended
> > /dev/hda2 * 544 1086 4361647+ c W95 FAT32
> > (LBA) /dev/hda3 1087 1991 7269412+ c W95
> > FAT32 (LBA) /dev/hda4 1992 2534 4361647+ 83
> > Linux /dev/hda5 2 543 4353583+ b W95
> > FAT32
> >
> > Then I delete all partitions except hda4 and create a extended
> > partition and two logical partitions
> > each logical partition corresponds to hda2 and hda3, listed above
> > but I can't access them in etch
> > then I use fdisk to recreate old table but still can't access them
> > even though the table looks the same as above
> >
> > Can you help me?
>
> Did you delete the windows partitions or the above information is
> still valid?
>
> Your partitioning scheme looks a bit weird (there are no primary
> partitions but just one extended holding the logical ones and the
> boot flag is under "hda2").
>
hda4 is still primary, the primaries don't need to be first on the
drive. On the whole, you can get away with very strange things in a
partition table, it tends to be partitioning tools which object rather
than real software. Mostly.
To the OP: you don't mention which version of Windows is involved here,
but anything up to XP will only boot from a bootable primary partition
(more accurately, the boot files need to be there, %windir% can be
anywhere, including another drive) and furthermore, the first primary
that Windows can see, so if you are planning on booting Windows again
from this installation, it's not going to work. I don't know about
Vista/Win7, as their bootloader is much harder to edit than with earlier
versions, and I haven't played around with them.
It's difficult to see why Linux cannot see these partitions. In
general, provided you get the start and end numbers right, you usually
can hack the partition table about quite brutally, and still have
things work. The partitions themselves aren't primary or logical, it's
only the location of the partition table entries that differ. Windows
can only boot from a primary because the first-stage bootloader was
written to see only the original four-entry base table, not the
extension. ('Four operating systems are enough for anyone').
Possibly you need to strip the partition table back to empty, *save*
*it*, then recreate it from nothing and save it again. If you just make
the edits without saving, you haven't achieved anything. As long as you
don't write anything anywhere other than the partition table, nothing
should be lost. If fdisk shows you the same numbers after a reboot,
then that really ought to be the actual state of things. As far as I
know, it's too stupid to lie.
--
Joe
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