From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Feb 15 18:45:44 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 66CC016A4CE for ; Sun, 15 Feb 2004 18:45:44 -0800 (PST) Received: from hotmail.com (bay8-f41.bay8.hotmail.com [64.4.27.41]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6173E43D2D for ; Sun, 15 Feb 2004 18:45:44 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from evantd@hotmail.com) Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Sun, 15 Feb 2004 18:45:44 -0800 Received: from 128.208.59.136 by by8fd.bay8.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP; Mon, 16 Feb 2004 02:45:43 GMT X-Originating-IP: [128.208.59.136] X-Originating-Email: [evantd@hotmail.com] X-Sender: evantd@hotmail.com From: "Evan Dower" To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 18:45:43 -0800 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 16 Feb 2004 02:45:44.0298 (UTC) FILETIME=[F935F4A0:01C3F436] Subject: Recovering Damaged Partition Table X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 02:45:44 -0000 So, the other day I was ripping some CDs... Upon restart, there was a message that ad0 had an unrecoverable error (media changed). It's a hard disk. I didn't notice any gnomes breaking into my computer and changing it on me. No matter. It won't boot. I installed FreeBSD on an empty partition of another disk, which is how I got to where I am now. Naturally, I have no backups. My plan is to reconstruct the partition table and then all should be fine. I've determined that my files seem to be in tact using 'strings /dev/ad0 | less'. It even looks like part of the partition table remains. % fdisk ad0 ******* Working on device /dev/ad0 ******* parameters extracted from in-core disklabel are: cylinders=59598 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl) Figures below won't work with BIOS for partitions not in cyl 1 parameters to be used for BIOS calculations are: cylinders=59598 heads=16 sectors/track=63 (1008 blks/cyl) fdisk: invalid fdisk partition table found Media sector size is 512 Warning: BIOS sector numbering starts with sector 1 Information from DOS bootblock is: The data for partition 1 is: The data for partition 2 is: The data for partition 3 is: The data for partition 4 is: sysid 165 (0xa5),(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD) start 63, size 60074721 (29333 Meg), flag 80 (active) beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1; end: cyl 205/ head 15/ sector 63 First, are there any tools that can look at the disk and guess what the partition table should look like? Failing that, I figure I can take a look at the disk where I think the partition edges were and look for some sort of cues to tell me what the partition boundaries ought to be. Can you all help me with this / guide me through it? Thanks very much for your time, -- Evan Dower Undergraduate, Computer Science University of Washington Public key: http://students.washington.edu/evantd/pgp-pub-key.txt Key fingerprint = D321 FA24 4BDA F82D 53A9 5B27 7D15 5A4F 033F 887D _________________________________________________________________ Keep up with high-tech trends here at "Hook'd on Technology." http://special.msn.com/msnbc/hookedontech.armx