Problems with disk partition table

[Ertain]

Hello everyone.  In diskdrake (or in the Control Center) the local disk can't read my partition tables correctly.  If I were to proceed with it checking and writing the disk it would obliterate my partitions.  Whenever I run fsck on my whole disk (/dev/sda) it says something about "bad magic number in super-block".  Even using "fdisk -l" doesn't work; it says that it's unable to read the disk.

I have looked at the program "testdisk" and it says that my Vista partition may be to blame.  You see, when I installed PCLinuxOS I had to first resize my Vista partition and then use the unallocated space to install PCLinuxOS.

Might anyone know how to remedy this situation?  (And no, reinstalling is not an option: I have three OSes on this laptop and it'll be a cold day in the Serengeti before I do that.)

[GOTHBITES]

Quick question are you able to boot into into any of the OS other then Vista.

I have something else in mind when you resize Vista did you reboot it a couple of times and ran defrag b4 you installed any other OS.

[Ertain]

Yeah, I can still boot into the OSes (I didn't defrag my Vista partition, though).

[Old-Polack]

Yeah, I can still boot into the OSes (I didn't defrag my Vista partition, though).

If fdisk can't read the partition table from any of the OS, You are in deep doo doo. Do you have a copy of your partition table anywhere? I've got copies of mine all over the internet, and this forum particularly. I've even sent copies to myself as email, so I can do a recovery from almost anywhere.

If you have a copy that shows the start and end cylinders of each partition, recovery is a matter of a few minutes. If not, I would be copying off, to another drive, everything I could get off this one.

[GOTHBITES]

Yeah, I can still boot into the OSes (I didn't defrag my Vista partition, though).

If fdisk can't read the partition table from any of the OS, You are in deep doo doo. Do you have a copy of your partition table anywhere? I've got copies of mine all over the internet, and this forum particularly. I've even sent copies to myself as email, so I can do a recovery from almost anywhere.

If you have a copy that shows the start and end cylinders of each partition, recovery is a matter of a few minutes. If not, I would be copying off, to another drive, everything I could get off this one.

and how would one go about this process and couldn't just image the OSes and wipe the drive and then put them back on

[Old-Polack]

Yeah, I can still boot into the OSes (I didn't defrag my Vista partition, though).

If fdisk can't read the partition table from any of the OS, You are in deep doo doo. Do you have a copy of your partition table anywhere? I've got copies of mine all over the internet, and this forum particularly. I've even sent copies to myself as email, so I can do a recovery from almost anywhere.

If you have a copy that shows the start and end cylinders of each partition, recovery is a matter of a few minutes. If not, I would be copying off, to another drive, everything I could get off this one.

and how would one go about this process and couldn't just image the OSes and wipe the drive and then put them back on

Imaging software makes bit for bit images. If the original is corrupted the image is just as corrupted. One needs to copy it off by directories, to a sound partition somewhere. USB hard drives are ideal for this.

[Ertain]

I'm just trying to erase unwanted partitions so that I can install PCLinuxOS 2010.

Still not going with a full format.  That would be a pain in the neck.  Has anyone had experience with "testdisk"?