accidentally deleted partition

[Geoff]

During installation of W2K on a new drive i accidentally
deleted the partion of another drive, although this does
not contain an operating system it does contain 7G of
files and folders which i would like to recover.

The Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 153973
discribes "Recovering Bootsectors of Primary Partitions"

"...You can verify this by the ASCII text on the right
hand side beginning at Offset 8B which should
read "Invalid Partition Table....".

Thid line i can see but it is not at Offset 8B, does this
mean i have a bigger problem? Is this the Boot sector?
Should there be a boot sector if there is no Bootable OS
on the drive?

Help would be appreciated

Geoff

 

[I'm Dan]

During installation of W2K on a new drive i accidentally
deleted the partion of another drive, although this
does not contain an operating system it does contain
7G of files and folders which i would like to recover.

The Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 153973
discribes "Recovering Bootsectors of Primary Partitions"

"...You can verify this by the ASCII text on the
right hand side beginning at Offset 8B which
should read "Invalid Partition Table....".

Thid line i can see but it is not at Offset 8B, does
this mean i have a bigger problem? Is this the Boot
sector? Should there be a boot sector if there is no
Bootable OS on the drive?

Help would be appreciated

I suppose the location of the text might vary depending on whose version of
boot code wrote the MBR to that disk (i.e., third-party vs. Microsoft) . . .
although it sounds like you probably have an ordinary Microsoft MBR so I
don't know why it wouldn't be at 0x8B. Yes, there is a MBR on each hard
disk, but i wouldn't worry too much about the text string - it's the
partition table at the bottom of the MBR you're after, not the boot code
that the text string belongs to (since you're not booting from that disk).
If you're sure you chose to look at Sector 0, then you're at the right
place.

The more important question is whether you will find a partition listed when
you follow the next sentence of those KB instructions. You may not, but the
KB assumes you will.

A little background: every hard disk has a master boot sector (MBR), which
contains the master partition table (MPT). The MPT contains an index to up
to 4 partitions on the disk. Each individual partition also contains its
own boot sector - a partition boot record (PBR). In the KB instructions,
step 3 is getting you to the MBR, step 4 is determining the location of the
partition in question, and step 5 is reading that partition's PBR.

IOW, the KB article is assuming your partition is reachable but its PBR is
corrupt, so the rest of the instructions deal with how to fix the PBR. But
if you *deleted* the partition, that generally means the MPT entry is zeroed
out - that is, the PBR may still be fine, but there's no pointer to it in
the disk's master index. To verify which is your case, what does Win2K's
Computer Management service say about the disk? If it says there is a
partition there but the type is "unknown", then the pointer is there in the
MPT, so proceed with the KB instructions. If it says the disk is all
unallocated space, then the pointer is missing. The KB article won't help
you in the latter case, but post back for other tips.

 

[Guest]

I have now moved the dive to another pc which is using XP Pro, in W2K it said that the partition type is unknown in XP it it sees it in My computer but not is Computer Manager


----- I'm Dan wrote: ----

During installation of W2K on a new drive i accidentall
deleted the partion of another drive, although thi
does not contain an operating system it does contai
7G of files and folders which i would like to recover
discribes "Recovering Bootsectors of Primary Partitions
right hand side beginning at Offset 8B whic
should read "Invalid Partition Table...."
this mean i have a bigger problem? Is this the Boo
sector? Should there be a boot sector if there is n
Bootable OS on the drive

I suppose the location of the text might vary depending on whose version o
boot code wrote the MBR to that disk (i.e., third-party vs. Microsoft) . .
although it sounds like you probably have an ordinary Microsoft MBR so
don't know why it wouldn't be at 0x8B. Yes, there is a MBR on each har
disk, but i wouldn't worry too much about the text string - it's th
partition table at the bottom of the MBR you're after, not the boot cod
that the text string belongs to (since you're not booting from that disk)
If you're sure you chose to look at Sector 0, then you're at the righ
place

The more important question is whether you will find a partition listed whe
you follow the next sentence of those KB instructions. You may not, but th
KB assumes you will

A little background: every hard disk has a master boot sector (MBR), whic
contains the master partition table (MPT). The MPT contains an index to u
to 4 partitions on the disk. Each individual partition also contains it
own boot sector - a partition boot record (PBR). In the KB instructions
step 3 is getting you to the MBR, step 4 is determining the location of th
partition in question, and step 5 is reading that partition's PBR

IOW, the KB article is assuming your partition is reachable but its PBR i
corrupt, so the rest of the instructions deal with how to fix the PBR. Bu
if you *deleted* the partition, that generally means the MPT entry is zeroe
out - that is, the PBR may still be fine, but there's no pointer to it i
the disk's master index. To verify which is your case, what does Win2K'
Computer Management service say about the disk? If it says there is
partition there but the type is "unknown", then the pointer is there in th
MPT, so proceed with the KB instructions. If it says the disk is al
unallocated space, then the pointer is missing. The KB article won't hel
you in the latter case, but post back for other tips

 

[Robert Green]

I have now moved the dive to another pc which is using XP Pro, in W2K

it said >that the partition type is unknown in XP it it sees it in My
computer but not >is Computer Manager?

If all you did was to delete a partition on this drive, then restoring
it should fairly simple. Go the site in my signature and follow the
instructions "Simple Steps for Partition Table Recovery." Post back
here or email me if you help.

Bob

Robert Green
BootMaster Partition Recovery
http://bootmaster.filerecovery.biz