Noob that eliminated his windows 7 partition (maybe). Need help.

[MyPCLinuxName]

I recently downloaded the latest PCLinuxOS and was very much looking forward to installing again after having left it several years ago. I went ahead with the install from disk. I got to the partitioning portion and something went VERY wrong.
(I realize this was my own stupidity, so save the insults). I went to the "custom" option and I accidentally created too many swap partitions. I then hit the clear button (to start over I thought) and it wiped the windows partition off the option menu. THEN....it wouldn't come back.....there was no undo...no back button....what to do.  Well, with previous installs I'd done, as long as you didn't hit "apply" then, no-harm-no-foul, so I tried to use escape, ctrl-alt-del, and nothing worked. So I hit the power button hoping that I could start anew. Well, THAT didn't happen. No boot screen, no nothing. I went to gparted and the kde partitioning software from the live cd. No help. I also tried the redo mbr and redo grub commands. Again, nothing worked. I was unable to get any help with the matter and I had a backup of most of my important data on an external drive, so I decided to resize the "non-partition" that it did see and make a swap disk and created some install space and went ahead and loaded PCLinuxOS hoping that installing it might recreate the MBR and let me boot back into windows 7. Didn't happen. So now, I have a nice install of PCLinuxOS and I can't get to my windows partition. Is there any hope, or did I majorly kill my chances of getting back to windows? ....as a side effect.....I also cant see my external Iomega drive data (though it does see the drive), or use my TV as a monitor (so I had to borrow a piece of crap one). The TV tells me it doesn't recognize this device.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

[CaptainSarcastic]

Does Gparted still show an NTFS partition?  Is this an OEM install on a name-brand machine (Dell, HP, etc.)?  They usually have more than one partition, as the usual modus operandi nowadays is to have a "recovery partition" instead of including optical media with a new computer.

Are you working on a desktop?  It sounds like it, considering the monitor/TV issue you mention.

Knowing more about the machine you are working on, and especially what partitions Gparted reports, would be helpful to know.

[Phil]

Hi,

No laughing here as I have done too many silly things over the years. Consider it an opportunity to learn.

Step 1 is stop and gather information.

What is your system?

What partitions exist?
As root in a terminal type #fdisk -l  (thats l for list)

Post back and stay calm,

Phil

[aguila]

Hi,

if you can start PCLinuxOS from a LiveCD, you can run RedoMBR from the menu.

How did you connect your TV to the computer? DVI always seems more troubling than VGA or HDMI. Please give some specs.

[Just17]

If the partition has been deleted, it can be recreated and all the contents of the partition will be there PROVIDING that no new partitions have been created and WRITTEN to.

The tool to recover the partition table I suggest is

testdisk

It should be run from a liveCD/DVD or liveUSB.

It is run from a console session.

You might have to install it while running live or it might already be installed .....  cannot recall ATM.

The BIGGIE is to NOT write anything to the drive before attempting recovery.

[Tony]

Yeah, keep calm, collect all the information you can, and post back.

Read all that has already been posted in response to your problem. Do nothing more.
Good luck, MyPCLinuxName

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Too late after the horse has bolted I know, but maybe someone searching at a later time may see this.
It is so important if Dual Booting with a Windows System, to have a backup of your Windows MBR.
A tool I've used, it works, I can recommend: MbrFix

The command - (Windows)

If you have the Windows MBR you can simply restore it, delete the Linux partitions, and return to your Windows installation.

[MyPCLinuxName]

Does Gparted still show an NTFS partition?  Is this an OEM install on a name-brand machine (Dell, HP, etc.)?  They usually have more than one partition, as the usual modus operandi nowadays is to have a "recovery partition" instead of including optical media with a new computer.

Are you working on a desktop?  It sounds like it, considering the monitor/TV issue you mention.

Knowing more about the machine you are working on, and especially what partitions Gparted reports, would be helpful to know.

Toshiba laptop satellite A505....ex wife busted the screen (hence the monitor), 4 gig ram, 500gb hd
The partition does not show NTFS....it only showed space (roughly 460 gb)

[MyPCLinuxName]

Hi,

if you can start PCLinuxOS from a LiveCD, you can run RedoMBR from the menu.

How did you connect your TV to the computer? DVI always seems more troubling than VGA or HDMI. Please give some specs.

As I stated, Redo MBR did not work. Connection to monitor is VGA.

[MyPCLinuxName]

If the partition has been deleted, it can be recreated and all the contents of the partition will be there PROVIDING that no new partitions have been created and WRITTEN to.

The tool to recover the partition table I suggest is

testdisk

It should be run from a liveCD/DVD or liveUSB.

It is run from a console session.

You might have to install it while running live or it might already be installed .....  cannot recall ATM.

The BIGGIE is to NOT write anything to the drive before attempting recovery.

Thats what I was afraid of. As I said, I created a swap and linux partition (about 25gb, I had plenty of room)....and after install I could not see an NTFS partition, but the space is still there (roughly 420 gb).

[Phil]

Just thinking ahead. You know you can run windows via virtualbox, getvirtualbox in synaptic. So in due course maybe linux with windows virtualised, might make it easier to manage.

Currently suggest doing nothing, gather information, and your system may be fully recoverable. Avoid writing to it and someone will give instructions to test and maybe recover. Enjoy the ride even if at the moment it does not look good.

[Just17]

If the partition has been deleted, it can be recreated and all the contents of the partition will be there PROVIDING that no new partitions have been created and WRITTEN to.

The tool to recover the partition table I suggest is

testdisk

It should be run from a liveCD/DVD or liveUSB.

It is run from a console session.

You might have to install it while running live or it might already be installed .....  cannot recall ATM.

The BIGGIE is to NOT write anything to the drive before attempting recovery.

Thats what I was afraid of. As I said, I created a swap and linux partition (about 25gb, I had plenty of room)....and after install I could not see an NTFS partition, but the space is still there (roughly 420 gb).

If the same space as previously occupied by the partition is there, then nothing that was in the partition will have been written over.

So, recovering the partition using testdisk or other tool should get things back to the way they were.

[Tony]

MyPCLinuxName:

Thats what I was afraid of. As I said, I created a swap and linux partition (about 25gb, I had plenty of room)....and after install I could not see an NTFS partition, but the space is still there (roughly 420 gb).

Just17:

If the partition has been deleted, it can be recreated and all the contents of the partition will be there PROVIDING that no new partitions have been created and WRITTEN to.

The tool to recover the partition table I suggest is

testdisk

It should be run from a liveCD/DVD or liveUSB.

It is run from a console session.

You might have to install it while running live or it might already be installed .....  cannot recall ATM.

The BIGGIE is to NOT write anything to the drive before attempting recovery.

I just checked my Synaptic packages and have testdisk installed. It may also be on your system, MyPCLinuxName, as you said in opening post:
"So now, I have a nice install of PCLinuxOS and I can't get to my windows partition."

Just17 seems confident as long as the new partitions haven't been written to try testdisk.

Synaptic:
testdisk
Tool to check and undelete partition
Tool to check and undelete partition. Works with the following
filesystems:
    * BeFS ( BeOS )
    * BSD disklabel ( FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD )
    * CramFS, Compressed File System
    * DOS/Windows FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32
    * HFS and HFS+, Hierarchical File System
    * JFS, IBM's Journaled File System
    * Linux Ext2 and Ext3
    * Linux Raid
          o RAID 1: mirroring
          o RAID 4: striped array with parity device
          o RAID 5: striped array with distributed parity information
          o RAID 6: striped array with distributed dual redundancy information
    * Linux Swap (versions 1 and 2)
    * LVM and LVM2, Linux Logical Volume Manager
    * Mac partition map
    * Novell Storage Services NSS
    * NTFS ( Windows NT/2K/XP/2003/Vista )
    * ReiserFS 3.5, 3.6 and 4
    * Sun Solaris i386 disklabel
    * Unix File System UFS and UFS2 (Sun/BSD/...)
    * XFS, SGI's Journaled File System

Let's know what you decide to do, helps people to have examples if they run into a similar problem.
If advice hasn't helped, or your stuck, support can be given to help with other options.
 

[MyPCLinuxName]

Yeah, keep calm, collect all the information you can, and post back.

Read all that has already been posted in response to your problem. Do nothing more.
Good luck, MyPCLinuxName

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Too late after the horse has bolted I know, but maybe someone searching at a later time may see this.
It is so important if Dual Booting with a Windows System, to have a backup of your Windows MBR.
A tool I've used, it works, I can recommend: MbrFix

The command - (Windows)

If you have the Windows MBR you can simply restore it, delete the Linux partitions, and return to your Windows installation.

THAT would've been helpful earlier....LOL.......

As a side note to any developers that might read this......wouldn't the MBR Fix or an "undo", or "back" button be something useful to create as a part of the Live Install?.....just sayin', for people like me that can break an anvil....

[MyPCLinuxName]

Just thinking ahead. You know you can run windows via virtualbox, getvirtualbox in synaptic. So in due course maybe linux with windows virtualised, might make it easier to manage.

Currently suggest doing nothing, gather information, and your system may be fully recoverable. Avoid writing to it and someone will give instructions to test and maybe recover. Enjoy the ride even if at the moment it does not look good.

I really must thank all of of you for your continued support on this.....this has been an EXCELLENT forum experience.

I'm not terribly devasted by this, as I said, most of my data was saved externally, its just inconvenient because there were a few things I wanted to do first, but no biggie. One major thing though is that my machine didn't come with a windows 7 install disk, so if I ruined the partition, I can't reinstsall windows. .....not that that would be all bad....LOL, except for games of course.

[MyPCLinuxName]

Where do I find testdisk?....or is it just run in console?