Corrupt partition [Solved]

[Sleepy]

Is there any way I can repair what I'm seeing below in 'Manage Disc Partition' on one of my hdd's please?


I can not read the partition table of device sdb, it's too corrupted for me
I can try to go on, erasing over bad partitions (ALL DATA will be lost!).
The other solution is to not allow DrakX to modify the partition table.
(the error is extended partition: reading of partition in sector 4584699571 failed.
)

Do you agree to lose all the partitions?

[Old-Polack]

Is there any way I can repair what I'm seeing below in 'Manage Disc Partition' on one of my hdd's please?


I can not read the partition table of device sdb, it's too corrupted for me
I can try to go on, erasing over bad partitions (ALL DATA will be lost!).
The other solution is to not allow DrakX to modify the partition table.
(the error is extended partition: reading of partition in sector 4584699571 failed.
)

Do you agree to lose all the partitions?

Hard to tell without more information. What data is on the partition/s? What filesystem? Have you looked at the partition table with fdisk? Do you have a copy of what the partition table looked like before the corruption? Do you have recent backups of the data involved?

[Sleepy]

Is there any way I can repair what I'm seeing below in 'Manage Disc Partition' on one of my hdd's please?


I can not read the partition table of device sdb, it's too corrupted for me
I can try to go on, erasing over bad partitions (ALL DATA will be lost!).
The other solution is to not allow DrakX to modify the partition table.
(the error is extended partition: reading of partition in sector 4584699571 failed.
)

Do you agree to lose all the partitions?

Hard to tell without more information. What data is on the partition/s? What filesystem? Have you looked at the partition table with fdisk? Do you have a copy of what the partition table looked like before the corruption? Do you have recent backups of the data involved?

Hi OP
I don't have a copy of what the partition table looked like before and I don't have a recent backup of the data involved which isn't important as I'm only testing KDE 4 beta 2.
The only important partition on this particular hdd is Windows XP which I would like to try not to damage though I do have a backup of it.
I'm not quite sure what to do re'fdisk.

These are the important bits of information I'm seeing on the hdd, so hope it might help.
The ones marked as Not required were created when I was experimenting with KDE4 beta1 and are /home partitions.
My Beta 2 installation doesn't have a separate /home partition.


sdb1
NTFS Windows XP
start sector 0
127GB
cylinder 0 to 16707

sdb5
Linux swap
start sector 268413956
3.8GB
cylinder 16707 to 17216

sdb6
KDE4 beta 2
ext4
start sector 276590978
31GB
cylinder 17216 to21377

sdb7
Not required
Empty
start sector 343437380
909MB 186347 sectors
cylinder 21377 to 21493

sdb8
Not required
Linux swap
start sector  345300856
188MB
cylinder 21493 to21517

sdb9
Not required
ext 4
start sector 345686352
792MB
cylinder 21517 to 21618

Empty
start sector 347308854
67GB
cylinder 21618 to 30401

Edit
This problem seemed to stem from formatting a 10GB partition that contained KDE4 beta 1.

[Old-Polack]

Sleepy:

The sector it's complaining about not reading is toward the end of, or possibly past the empty space. Open a root terminal and enter;

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l             <Enter>   <-- Lower case L, not a number 1

Post your results.

[Sleepy]

Op  

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbd72bd72

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        7127    57247596   83  Linux
/dev/sda2            7664        9729    16595145    5  Extended
/dev/sda3            7128        7663     4305420   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda5            7664        7919     2056288+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6            7920        9729    14538793+  83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Unable to seek on /dev/sdb

Sorry!!This is showing the wrong hdd.

[Old-Polack]

Op  

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbd72bd72

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        7127    57247596   83  Linux
/dev/sda2            7664        9729    16595145    5  Extended
/dev/sda3            7128        7663     4305420   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda5            7664        7919     2056288+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6            7920        9729    14538793+  83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Unable to seek on /dev/sdb

Sorry!!This is showing the wrong hdd.

You really should run fdisk on sda to correct the partition order; your second and third partitions are transposed.

[root@littleboy ~]# fdisk /dev/sda

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 121601.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): m
Command action
   a   toggle a bootable flag
   b   edit bsd disklabel
   c   toggle the dos compatibility flag
   d   delete a partition
   l   list known partition types
   m   print this menu
   n   add a new partition
   o   create a new empty DOS partition table
   p   print the partition table
   q   quit without saving changes
   s   create a new empty Sun disklabel
   t   change a partition's system id
   u   change display/entry units
   v   verify the partition table
   w   write table to disk and exit
   x   extra functionality (experts only)            <-- This one next

Command (m for help): x

Expert command (m for help): m
Command action
   b   move beginning of data in a partition
   c   change number of cylinders
   d   print the raw data in the partition table
   e   list extended partitions
   f   fix partition order             <-- This one, to do the job.
   g   create an IRIX (SGI) partition table
   h   change number of heads
   i   change the disk identifier                                                                                             
   m   print this menu                                                                                                       
   p   print the partition table                                                                                             
   q   quit without saving changes                                                                                           
   r   return to main menu                                                                                                   
   s   change number of sectors/track                                                                                         
   v   verify the partition table
   w   write table to disk and exit

Expert command (m for help): f
Nothing to do. Ordering is correct already.

I get that because my partitions are already in proper order. You'll probably get nothing returned.

Expert command (m for help): r

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              14        1047     8305605   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3            1048        7127    48837600   83  Linux
/dev/sda4            7128      108893   817435395    5  Extended
/dev/sda5            7128       20500   107418591   83  Linux
/dev/sda6           20501       33267   102550896   83  Linux
/dev/sda7           33268       37158    31254426   83  Linux
/dev/sda8           37159       41049    31254426   83  Linux
/dev/sda9           41050       44940    31254426   83  Linux
/dev/sda10          44941       48831    31254426   83  Linux
/dev/sda11          48832       61886   104864256   83  Linux
/dev/sda12          61887      101050   314584798+  83  Linux
/dev/sda13         101051      104942    31262458+  83  Linux
/dev/sda14         104943      108893    31736376   83  Linux

Command (m for help):

If the partitions now show they are in proper order, as mine do, the next/last command would be  w   write table to disk and exit.

For the sdb drive, if fdisk can't even seek on it, try running testdisk to see if it can discover/recover the previous partitions. Sometimes it can do some pretty amazing stuff. It's a command line tool, so needs to be run in a root terminal, (like fdisk) but pretty intuitive. Just read the choices and choose what seems appropriate, throughout.

[Sleepy]

Hi again OP

Things are looking good!

I seem to have restored everything thanks to your expertise and  am now seeing these results..

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbd72bd72

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1   *           1        7127    57247596   83  Linux
/dev/hdb2            7128        7663     4305420   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hdb3            7664        9729    16595145    5  Extended
/dev/hdb5            7664        7919     2056288+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb6            7920        9729    14538793+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x44cb44cb

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1       16708   134206978+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2           16709       22946    50106735    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5           16709       18035    10659096   83  Linux
/dev/sda6           18152       18175      192748+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7           18176       18276      811251   83  Linux
/dev/sda8           18277       18785     4088511   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda9           18786       22946    33423201   83  Linux


The only problem I have now is,I'm unable to boot into sda1 Windows XP
                                                           or     sda9 KDE4 beta 2
I was hoping it was a case of the menu 1st file altering in some way due to the changes I made.
All very confusing because one hdd is identified as (hd0,..)and the other (hd1,..)but I'm also seeing sda....
This was the working menu 1st file before I made the above changes and my apologies if I've made it even harder to understand.

timeout 20
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

title LXDE
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=LXDE root=UUID=c5a232cc-6c41-4ab6-8596-4c42b5528f16 acpi=on resume=UUID=c0bedcbc-57e6-4ccd-b6df-e3167f264efa splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img

title linux-nonfb
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=UUID=c5a232cc-6c41-4ab6-8596-4c42b5528f16 acpi=on resume=UUID=c0bedcbc-57e6-4ccd-b6df-e3167f264efa
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID=c5a232cc-6c41-4ab6-8596-4c42b5528f16 failsafe acpi=on
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img

title windows
root (hd1,0)
map (0x81) (0x80)
map (0x80) (0x81)
makeactive
chainloader +1

title Gnome
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26.8.tex3 BOOT_IMAGE=Gnome_2 root=/dev/hdb1 acpi=on resume=UUID=c0bedcbc-57e6-4ccd-b6df-e3167f264efa splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd-2.6.26.8.tex3.img


title Puppy Linux 431 frugal
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
kernel /puppy431/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy431 nosmp
initrd /puppy431/initrd.gz


title KDE beta2
kernel (hd1,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=dbd872c8-2884-40d2-980c-836f4bef5c43  resume=UUID=68c848ac-1482-4ac6-9a62-87ff6721a786 splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd1,5)/boot/initrd.img

[Old-Polack]

Hi again OP

Things are looking good!

I seem to have restored everything thanks to your expertise and  am now seeing these results..

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbd72bd72

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1   *           1        7127    57247596   83  Linux
/dev/hdb2            7128        7663     4305420   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hdb3            7664        9729    16595145    5  Extended
/dev/hdb5            7664        7919     2056288+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb6            7920        9729    14538793+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x44cb44cb

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1       16708   134206978+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2           16709       22946    50106735    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5           16709       18035    10659096   83  Linux
/dev/sda6           18152       18175      192748+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7           18176       18276      811251   83  Linux
/dev/sda8           18277       18785     4088511   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda9           18786       22946    33423201   83  Linux


The only problem I have now is,I'm unable to boot into sda1 Windows XP
                                                           or     sda9 KDE4 beta 2
I was hoping it was a case of the menu 1st file altering in some way due to the changes I made.
All very confusing because one hdd is identified as (hd0,..)and the other (hd1,..)but I'm also seeing sda....
This was the working menu 1st file before I made the above changes and my apologies if I've made it even harder to understand.

timeout 20
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

title LXDE
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=LXDE root=UUID=c5a232cc-6c41-4ab6-8596-4c42b5528f16 acpi=on resume=UUID=c0bedcbc-57e6-4ccd-b6df-e3167f264efa splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img

title linux-nonfb
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=UUID=c5a232cc-6c41-4ab6-8596-4c42b5528f16 acpi=on resume=UUID=c0bedcbc-57e6-4ccd-b6df-e3167f264efa
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=UUID=c5a232cc-6c41-4ab6-8596-4c42b5528f16 failsafe acpi=on
initrd (hd0,5)/boot/initrd.img

title windows
root (hd1,0)
map (0x81) (0x80)
map (0x80) (0x81)
makeactive
chainloader +1

title Gnome
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26.8.tex3 BOOT_IMAGE=Gnome_2 root=/dev/hdb1 acpi=on resume=UUID=c0bedcbc-57e6-4ccd-b6df-e3167f264efa splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd-2.6.26.8.tex3.img


title Puppy Linux 431 frugal
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
kernel /puppy431/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy431 nosmp
initrd /puppy431/initrd.gz


title KDE beta2
kernel (hd1,5)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=UUID=dbd872c8-2884-40d2-980c-836f4bef5c43  resume=UUID=68c848ac-1482-4ac6-9a62-87ff6721a786 splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd1,5)/boot/initrd.img

Yup... confusion reigns. What drive is the boot drive? On which drive is each of the OS; which partition of that drive?

Try posting like so;

Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux                               <-- Boot partition
/dev/sdc2              14        1047     8305605   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdc3            1048        7127    48837600   83  Linux                          <-- TR5 upgraded to limit
/dev/sdc4            7128      108893   817435395    5  Extended
/dev/sdc5            7128       20500   107418591   83  Linux             <-- Data mounted at /home/polack/Documents
/dev/sdc6           20501       33267   102550896   83  Linux            <-- Backups    
/dev/sdc7           33268       37158    31254426   83  Linux             <-- TR6 upgraded to limit   
/dev/sdc8           37159       41049    31254426   83  Linux             <-- MiniMe upgraded to max, no extras                                                        
/dev/sdc9           41050       44940    31254426   83  Linux             <-- MiniMe build environment  
/dev/sdc10          44941       48831    31254426   83  Linux            <-- TR6 backups
/dev/sdc11          48832       61886   104864256   83  Linux            <-- Backups
/dev/sdc12          61887      101050   314584798+  83  Linux          <-- Data, videos
/dev/sdc13         101051      104942    31262458+  83  Linux          <-- PCLinuxOS Beta2
/dev/sdc14         104943      108893    31736376   83  Linux            <-- PCLinuxOS Beta1

[Sleepy]

Just cracked it OP!
With trial and error, the outcome was that during the few changes made,the menu 1st file for the KDE4 beta 2 partition required change from (hd1,5) to (hd1,8).
Though why this should have occurred is beyond my limited capabilities.

Once again many thanks for your patience and detailed help