From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Mar 7 14:40:09 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org 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 7D73816A420 for ; Tue, 7 Mar 2006 14:40:09 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jofsama@yahoo.com) Received: from smtp010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com (smtp010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com [217.12.11.79]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id BDFF543D45 for ; Tue, 7 Mar 2006 14:40:08 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jofsama@yahoo.com) Received: (qmail 95444 invoked from network); 7 Mar 2006 14:40:07 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=Received:From:To:Subject:Date:Message-ID:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding:X-Priority:X-MSMail-Priority:X-Mailer:Importance:In-Reply-To:X-MimeOLE; b=wrYcJc6az0TNL8xwvBEPIFSHZBHVuDomRUdFGV9JF0gPK3Xx/+2FoTlCr857AuMQXbnwbCriDo2YkZPUsoWnNHlFYfM9MLyH5dvU0pZc64eUka44rtV+xLCteAKPeVrQAiaRn473uRSLWkucCiJlwxEL0LUzI/MnqF1cBXVQnu8= ; Received: from unknown (HELO HAPLO) (jofsama@220.96.161.72 with login) by smtp010.mail.ukl.yahoo.com with SMTP; 7 Mar 2006 14:40:06 -0000 From: "Jarrod O'Flaherty" To: Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 23:41:44 +0900 Message-ID: <000001c641f5$443eb0f0$040ba8c0@HAPLO> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.2627 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <20060305211729.EB6F716A430@hub.freebsd.org> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180 Subject: Re: Help with lost MBR on USB HDD X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 14:40:09 -0000 For anyone who might be interested... > Jarrod O'Flaherty wrote: > > > And last but not least, I really hope someone can tell me how I can > > salvage my MBR & other 3 partitions. If that is not possible, then > > perhaps you can point me in the direction of a tool which will salvage > > the files on the lost slices? There's not heaps of data there, only > > around 20 GB or so across all three. But if I can, I'd really like to > > get it back. I'm hoping NTFS is robust enough to allow salvaging like > > this? > > > > Any and all help GREATLY appreciated!! > > > > Thankyou, > > Jarrod. > > I know you do not want to hear this, but why on earth did you > attempt to mess with the HD without a full backup in place first? > > I am not sure if you can recover the lost data. If not, this would be a > good time to wipe the disk clean and partition it to your liking. I > believe that you will have to install Windows before > installing FreeBSD. > > Good Luck! > -- > Gerard > I've done a lot of reading the last couple of days into the MBR and the like. Have to say it's a tad tough going, but quite a bit of fun at the same time. ;) Gerard, yes, this would be a good opportunity to wipe it and start again. If only it wasn't for those MP3s. ;) For those who couldn't read my last email because it was rather a bit too long, the short of it is that FDISK fried my USB HDD's MBR when I asked it to change a partition type's from NTFS to FreeBSD. Why did this happen? Does anyone have a large (blank!) USB HDD that they could experiment with? It would be great to see if this problem is replicable on FreeBSD. If so, I would suggest that a PR needs to be raised against FDISK. For anyone in the distant future who perhaps has trouble with their MBR and/or partitions I've found a stack of great literature on the web I'd be more than happy to post up. Also, tools that you might be interested in in order to "investigate" things are: - dskprobe.exe (WinNT / XP "Support Tool" for hex viewing disk) - dd (Data [File] dumping tool in Linux / BSD) - hd (Pretty print tool -- used with dd it apparently gets similar results to Dskprobe.exe) - gpart (Partition search and retrieval tool -- not yet tried myself) - part.exe (Ranish Partition Manager tool -- runs under DOS) They would be the main ones thus far. Anyone know of anything else I should be checking out? As it is, now that I am armed to the teeth, I hope to find out how much damage my USB HDD suffered, and then hopefully patch up the MBR and/or Logical Drives I lost. Keep you all posted. Cheers, Jarrod.