Partition Table crashed

[Rainald Taesler]

I am having serious problems with Win XP Pro (on my HP d530 USDT).

Trying to copy the system partition C: to an external HDD (USB 2.)
with Ghost, the partition table of my internal HDD was destroyed.

1.) My system has a 40GB HDD which had been set up with 3 partitions:
C with app. 13GB, D and E with app. 12GB each.
It now starts with the error "Missing OS".

The Win 98 FDISK reports the following:
Partition Status Type VolLabel Mbytes System Usage
C: 1 A PRI DOS 7 unknown %
2 NTFS 13.001 34%
3 EXT DOS 25.153 66%

Total disk space 38.162 Mbytes

The Extended DOS Partition contains logical DOS drives.
<<
When selecting to display the Logical DOS drives, FDISK reports:
"No logical Drives defined".

From the info on 7 MB as the first partition, I assume that this might
be the apportioned space which remained after having created the
partitions.

DR. DOS on a Partition Magic rescue disk gives some more details:
FDISK R2.02 Fixed Disk Maintenance Utility Copyright
(c) 1986,1998 Caldera, Inc. All rights reserved.

Partitions on 1st hard disk (7552.6 Mb, 1023 cylinders):
No Drive Start End MB Status Type
1 -- 0 736 13001.1 N NTFS/HPFS
2 C: 648 648 7.3 A PRI DOS
-- 649 736 649.6 Free Space
3 -- 737 47 25153.2 N VFAT LBA (2)
-- 48 1023 7198.2 Free Space
<<

Partition Magic (PM) run from diskettes reports error # 113 which -
according to the manual - would mean that the partition table contains
wrong values.

The info provided by PM's Partinfo is attached.

2. As usual with Mr. Murphy at the side: No recent backups of the
system drive C:
(that's what for I used Ghost). Data of the the other two partitions
are on the external HDD too.

2. Under Knoppix 3.6 all of the partitions are shown fine. All of the
files and directories are there and files can be opened.

They are read-only, however.
The same with the partitions on the external HDD.

I'm using Knoppix for the first time, so I do not know how to enable
*writing* to a drive. I would otherwise copied the C: partition to the
external HDD.

3. I do not know what to do.
a) A friend gave the advice to run XP from the CD in the repair mode.

b) DR DOS on the PM diskette offers to re-write the MBR.

c) PM has a "Partition Table Editor" (but using it is ways above my
head).

I fear that using one these alternatives I might destroy the rests of
the partition table.
Different from the old DOS days I do not know how MBRs and partition
tables work nowadays. :-( :-(

4. Available devices:
a) External HDD,
b) multibay in the computer,
c) USB multibay-cradle,
d) several optical multibay drives,
d) multibay diskette drive (LS-120).

Has anybody got a suggestion on how to cure the problem safely (without
risking to loose what is the C: partition)?
Having to set up the system from scratch would mean several days of
work.

I would not see a problem if I knew how I might copy the data from the
C: drive to the external HB.
Would this possible with certain settings in Knoppix?
Would there be some other tools (PE or so)?

Thanks in advance.
I am in a desperate situation as this my one and only desktop computer
and cannot do any work without it. The notebook I am using right now to
post this is having serious problems.

Rainald

 

[Guest]

Ouch. Try doing a parralell install if possible, with your hardware and OS
setup I wouldn't attempt this again. (next time install OS onto external and
copy all C:\ contents there, works best with three HDD's (to copy running
services))

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Listing from PM PartInfo attached.

 

[Guest]

Sorry I was too tired last night to absob all that. So you corrupted the MBR,
the partitions are still intact (well, the file system is there). Your
problem is a little to much for me but I can suggest these:

I was going to try out knoppix but haven't had the time yet so I'll suggest
making a BART PE disk (preinstalled environment like Knoppix but based on the
MS Windows PE).
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

It will take an hour or so to put together and runs like windows plus you
get some nifty addons like virus scanners and troubleshooting tools...With
this you will be able to copy to Ext HDD.
After you copy everything to the external try to use Dr DOS to restore the
MBR, of course this will likely destroy the partitions unless you use a
backed-up original MBR which you should use replace the broken one.
Otherwise you are looking at reinstalling the OS.

You never mentioned if you successfully cloned your boot partition to your
ext. HDD, Its not reccommended to clone a boot drive to a location other than
the beggining of the disc. like this "C":\<boot>, "D":\<backup files>,
"E:\<"">. If this what you did then why is the original C:\ not there?

When you clone 'as your new boot disc' (which I assume you did) you are
prompted to 'reboot with new drive first or risk destroying your copy of
windows'. Have you tried to boot from the external?

Take snapshots of your HDD before you alter them (backupbackupbackup) but
you know that already...backup your MBR and burn unrplacable files to CD/DVD
frequently.

Hope some of this helped.