Killed my HD using Gparted - any hope to restore it ?

[LexRex]

Well, it's best if you already know the partition type, of course. I would bet that at least the partitions with labels were primary, but it's not my computer, so you have to make the decision. The remaining one could be extended, but I would think testdisk would see the logical partitions. Maybe not, I don't really have a lot of experience with it, because I've never really needed it, and I'm not willing to delete partitions from my HD just to see.

Sgosnell:

A 'come on - where is your spirit of adventure ? - Just look at all the fun I'm having messing around deleting partitions on a whim !

Just kidding, of course.

I've been reading up on this a lot, and I found a bit of advice on the HP website that states:

HP's brand new Notebook PC comes with pre-loaded windows 7...



H.D.D has four partitions all primary

01) System Reserved (primary, NTFS, system, active, default boot)

02) OS (primary, NTFS, main windows 7 partition)

03) Recovery Partition (primary, NTFS, HP's windows 7 recovery partition, to recovery from crash using F11)

04) Hp Tools (primary, FAT32, new feature in HP's Notebook used to diagnose Hardwares such as H.D.D, Ram etc.,)

The entire post is here: http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-O ... d-p/143741

Anyhow, if this NP spokesman is correct, all the partitions are Primary (none therfore are logical or extended, right ?), but the first one listed as SYSTEM is the 'active, bootable' one that must boot first.

The 2nd one that has no label, is most likely what he calls # 2 above: OS operating system, and is also Primary.

This all makes sense, based upon several other relevant articles I won't bore you with - and I hope it's correct. I am still not sure if the "TestDisk' program can correct me if I get it wrong, or if i guess wrong, will it muck up the effort altogether.

At that hazard of getting it wrong, I'm going to proceed with the recovery using TestDisk.

For reference, here is the print out as the program 'sees' the lost partitions, that we hope it will recover:

Disk /dev/sda - 250 GB / 232 GiB - CHS 30402 255 63

Partition Start End Size in sectors

D HPFS - NTFS 0 32 33 25 126 37 07552 [SYSTEM]
D HPFS - NTFS 25 126 38 28531 228 49 457955328 [no label here; I think this is OS partition]
D HPFS - NTFS 288531 228 50 30388 9 21 29818880 [RECOVERY]
D FAT32 LBA 30388 9 22 30401 48 31 211312 [HP_TOOLS]

Structure: OK. Use Up / Down arrows to select partition.
Use Left / Right arrow keys to CHANGE partition characteristics:
*=Primary bootable P=Primary L= Logical E= Extended D= deleted
Keys: A: add partition, L: load backup, T: change type, P: list files

[Rifester]

Sounds like a fun Friday night! Let us know how it turns out...

[LexRex]

Sounds like a fun Friday night! Let us know how it turns out...

Yes, sir, loads of fun.

My wife & daughter think I'm crazy, a glutton for punishment. They're correct, I'm either gonna fix this, or go 100 % Linux Mint 10 on the 'whole enchilada', ditching Windows entirely.

(The partial moral to this story is: don't do hard drive formatting at 5 am, before the first cup of coffee is down the hatch - or you'll mix tears with that cup.)

Just out of curiosity, do many of you have Linux only Notebook or Desktop machines ? if so, do you find you miss Windows, or is it not a problem ?

David

PS: Like your Crusader avatar.....

[sgosnell]

I would try doing that, restoring all as primary, then trying to boot from the HDD. I wouldn't make any other changes to anything until I knew things were right. You should still be able to recover if one of the partitions was extended, by just booting from the USB drive again and rerunning testdisk, and changing the partition type of the one which should have been extended. Provided you can figure that out, but my money would be on four primary partitions. OEMs don't often mess with putting extended and logical partitions on their hardware. That's usually only done with Linux, or by someone who wants to do something different.

Also, don't be mucking around with the partitions after midnight with adult beverages in hand and already down the hatch. Don't ask me how I know that.

I have abandoned my desktop machine, it's in pieces. My laptops have LMDE on them, although my wife's has Windows also, since she has software installed that she needs, and has lost the installation disks, so it's difficult if not impossible to install them using wine. I only use Windows at work, when I have to, and I not only don't miss it, I detest it. Whenever my wife's computer is booted into Windows, I curse it regularly, because it's so slow and irritating, giving me constant popups wanting to install updates to crap we never use anyway, offering to solve non-existent problems, and generally being useless. If I never again saw a Windows computer I would be very happy.

[Rifester]

I have screwed mine up royally more then once.... Two much wine, not enough sleep, coffee, etc., etc. Nobody in my household misses Windows.

[LexRex]

Well we have some good success to report:

Windows 7 is back, as normal, with all our data saved. A good thing, for sure.

Can't get the Linux Mint 9 (installed within Windows in a 30 GB partition) to work, though. All I get are error messages when attempting to chose Linux from the 'GRUB bootloader.

I am restarting 'TestDisk' and will attempt to re-recognize the Linux partitions that the Test earlier told me to keep inactive. Live & learn, I suppose !

I did leave out one thing: After running & writing to the HD using the 'TestDisk' program, the machine was able to boot the the boot screen, but not past it.

It kept on telling us to grab a Windows 7 Recovery Disk and boot from that & perform repair steps. We downloaded & burned a nice copy and it was able to recover us back to the point where Windowns7 loads perfectly.

Still, the Linux Mint 9 (mounted in 30 gb partition) needs restoring too, pray God.

Thx for your help -- David

[Fandangio]

Glad you managed to recover Windows, just be sure to backup all your data before going any further.

[sgosnell]

Are you using wubi to do the Mint install? You have 4 primary partitions used by Windows, and that's all the primary partitions you can have on one drive. If you want to put Mint on as a separate OS, you'll need to move the data off one of the partitions and make it an extended partition, and put logical partitions there to hold Linux and whatever else you want. If you can back up one of the partitions and change it to extended, you can put as many logical partitions there as you want.

[LexRex]

Glad you managed to recover Windows, just be sure to backup all your data before going any further.

Fandangio, Yes, indeed, I shall....probably using the plain jane Windows 7 back up utility is the best route to take ?

I two drives I could use:

- 60 GB HD in a Rocketfish portable enclosure
- 320 GB Seagate Free Agent portable back up drive

I guess the first would only be able to back up data - not large enough for a whole system backup.

[LexRex]

Are you using wubi to do the Mint install? You have 4 primary partitions used by Windows, and that's all the primary partitions you can have on one drive. If you want to put Mint on as a separate OS, you'll need to move the data off one of the partitions and make it an extended partition, and put logical partitions there to hold Linux and whatever else you want. If you can back up one of the partitions and change it to extended, you can put as many logical partitions there as you want.

No need to if I can recover my existing Linux Mint 9 (within Windows w/ Mint4Win), right ?

When the Windows boot screen appears, I see this:

Windows Boot Manager

Linux Mint
Windows 7 Home Premium (recovered)

Now, when I choose Windows 7, it runs fine (running it now...), but when I choose the Linux Mint entry, I'm getting this error message:

Windows cannot boot entry
File: \linuxmint\winboot\wubildr.mbr
Status: 0xc000000e
Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupted

Can anyone advise how to proceed ?

I have been tempted to go into the Windows "uninstall" - and just remove the Linux Mint 9 & install Mint 10 - but I'm holding off in case we can recover this.

Thanks for your help !

David

[sgosnell]

I've never used wubi (renamed Mint4Win to protect the innocent) to install inside Windows, so I have no advice for you on this. All I've ever done is install Linux to its own partition(s). I'm not entirely sure how that works, but I think it's mostly fooling Windows into thinking it's a Windows app, which runs inside Windows. I've never had enough interest in it to investigate further.

[LexRex]

I've never used wubi (renamed Mint4Win to protect the innocent) to install inside Windows, so I have no advice for you on this. All I've ever done is install Linux to its own partition(s). I'm not entirely sure how that works, but I think it's mostly fooling Windows into thinking it's a Windows app, which runs inside Windows. I've never had enough interest in it to investigate further.

Ok, well it's not a deal killer, but if anyone DOES have an idea of how to fix / replace the corrupted file, I'd be grateful !

A few of the items I will lose if that version of Linux Mint 9 is un-recoverable I will really miss.

I got the backup procedure figured out - wiped & reformatted the 320 GB Seagate drive, now Windows 7 BackUp is writing all the HD data & system image to it. Yipee !

It's probably a good thing to just do the dedicated partition install for Linux, like you've done. The installer is just to simplify for newbies - that is / was me, but it's only good for up to 30 GB, quite limited.

Now that I'll have the fully backed up drive, I'll be likelier to try the dedicated Mint 10 in a 1/2 HD Partition (assuming it can be done....) maybe 100 GB.

Before, I was afraid to try the moving the HD partitions for fear of messing up & losing Windows functionality.

Any special cautions to observe when I attempt this install ?

thanks, David

[LexRex]

Well, haven't fixed the LM9 failing to boot issue, but I can update on my efforts to backup the data (as Fandangio suggested).

Total frustration with Windows 7 Backup - what a waste of time !

Googled the problem - many others find the same issue: even using a larger backup external HD, you still can't save all your data. It was tedious reading on the actual Microsoft support forum from the 9 MS experts all disagree totally on why this bizarre error occurs.

So, I just went back to a simple disk copy / mirror software I got from download.cnet.com called 'Easeus Disk Copy 2.3' - worked like a charm.

Mirror perfect copy of the HD, that can be reloaded if I mess up this HD, using their CD as the boot disk. I believe this program is written Open Source.

Is there a Linux Mint specific program of this type ?

It matters not, either way the free software just plain works, whereas the corporate issued junk main purpose seems to be: to thoroughly frustrate paying users.

Makes me wonder why the heck I don't just dump Windows 7 altogether !!!!!!!!!! One step closer.....thanks for letting me vent....David

[sgosnell]

In Linux, you can use either Clonezilla or Remastersys. Clonezilla boots from an external drive, either CD or USB, while Remastersys is an installed program, and will make a backup of your entire drive while it's mounted, which most programs won't. You can use it to make a liveDVD of your entire system, if it's not too big, or just make a backup to any drive that will hold it. I have both programs, and personally prefer remastersys.