On Wed, 2007-03-14 at 13:27 -0700, J Merritt wrote: > I have a machine with three fixed disks: > hda = Windows XP (40 gb) > hdb = (see below) (60 gb) > hdc = ext2 partition for data storage (30 gb) > > hdb is the disk I'm having serious problems with. Before, the disk had > several partitions on it. I am not sure how many primary or secondary > partitions there were, although all of them were Linux partitions. > > My goal was to erase the first three partitions (because I never used > them anymore) and combine them into one large ext2 partition for more > data storage. (There were a total of five or six between the > primary/extended.) Using the Ultimate Boot CD and XFDISK, I deleted > the first three partitions, rebooted, and attempted to use the same > utility to create one large ext2 partition. However, after it created > the partition, XFDISK reported an error writing the partition data. > > The result is that none of the hdb partitions are accessible. I cannot > boot from any hdb partition and the partition utilities I've tried > have not been able to “see” the hdb partitions. One partial exception > is R-Linux, which I ran from a bootable CD. While it cannot read all > of the partition data, it did see a partial file structure for the > partitions while performing a scan of the drive, even though it was > sketchy and the filesizes were not accurate. > > I also attempted to use a gparted live CD, and it could not even see > hdb (it does see the other two just fine). Using gpart on the command > line returns: > > '*** Fatal error: cannot get sector size on dev(/dev/hdb).' > > When I open a terminal and type in 'gpart -C 29437,16,255 /dev/hdb' to > try forcing it to recognize the drive configuration, it gives the same > error. > > The BIOS reports that the drive is there. It detects it automatically. > > I've been trying to figure this out for awhile. So far, no real > success with anything. Any suggestions are appreciated. > If you're just trying to format/re-partition the drive, boot a Live cd (knoppix or whatever) and run use parted or QTParted. (don't partition or format if you want to keep any of the data. Data recovery would be a different issue entirely, be warned.) -- Matthew K Poer
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