LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Benjamin Close <linux@senet.com.au>
  To  : MWP <hirm@chariot.net.au>
  Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2000 13:28:47 +0930 (CST)

Re: Unformating a partition

On Sat, 29 Apr 2000, MWP wrote:

> The FAT is just about the only thing that you may be able to get going
> again.
> Unfortunatly though the MBR, Partition Table and Root Dir are all at the
> start of the drive and have no backups.
> If these are gone, then getting the orginal partition back up and working is
> almost impossible.

It's Not quite gone yet. If there was only one partition on the drive then
chances are it used the full space of the drive. Hence you can rebuild the
partition table using fdisk or something. If there was more than 1
partition on the drive you can use the program gpart (wonderful program!).
It will search a hard disk for a file system signature and hence can tell
you where say a linux ext2 or linux swap partition existed.

The MBR can be put back via a fdisk /mbr (or even better lilo).

The fat tables can be rebuild fairly well using a program called Tiramisu,
the catch here is that it's a commercial program (hmm, might write one
for linux).

I have just finished rebuilding a friends machine where a virus (yes it
was a win box) wiped out the first 1mb of /dev/hda. He had win/linux on
it. Linux was restored perfectly (both ext2 and swap). The fat partition
was recovered well enough to boot windows without a hitch (now that's an
achievement). Some of his applications didn't run. All in all he was
extreemly happy with the recovery.

Cheers,
	Benjamin

 

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