Fedora Installation :: Broken Partition Table - Cause Significant Data Corruption ?
Jul 24, 2009
During a recent request to install fedora 11, I ran into an interesting problem. It seems that between fedora10 and fedora11, the developers switched from fdisk, to parted for creating the initial pre-mke2fs partition table creation.
It looks like the implementation of this is broken, as it's writing the partition table with overlapping cylinder boundaries. While this can sometimes be ignored, it can in certain cases cause significant data corruption.
On an installation I took it through, using the latest installation media, in both manual & automatic partition creation, the layout looked like this:
The last two partitions turn out fine, for some reason. However, those two partitions should not have overlapping cylinders. After my very first installation, the system was completely unbootable, and not even fsck wouldn't rescue it. If this is possible, then that means that a system that's been online for months or even years could simply drop out of functionality simply due to a byte or two of system-critical data falling on that last cylinder. Considering that a lot of the time kernel data ends up on /dev/sda1 (commonly the /boot partition), this is something that should not be ignored.
I want to install Ubuntu (10.10) on the 1TB drive I need to unplug the SSD while installing it in order to dual boot by pressing F8 (the way I want it to be) so that Grub doesn't get installed on the SSD. What I want to know is can I partition the 1TB drive to install Ubuntu without any data corruption or anything? I have read that NTFS can lose data if partitioned with data already on it (I have no way of backing up my 100GB of files on the drive, as currently this IS my backup drive). What I want to do is have 900GB for files, and a 100GB partition (or partitions adding up to 100GB) for Ubuntu- what is the best way to do this? I don't need seperate partitions for ubuntu, can I install the whole thing to the 100GB partition and boot from it? Or do I need swap as well? I was thinking of making 900GB partition, 4GB partition for swap (if needed) and 96GB partition for Ubuntu (/ if I understand) as this is what the "erase entire drive" option creates.
While installing Ubuntu I have created 50MB boot partition and was sure is enogugh, but now with growing initrd and kernel size, an autoupdates which were always killed by no sufficient disk space I decided to increase its size. I had following partitions - in disk order:
Is the problem still in bad begining of the partition saved or data are already broken ? If the first is there any mount option to really not touch filesystem ? Because I've read even if we mount readonly there are some options saved to disk (as last mount time etc) and I'm aware it could destroy entrie filesystem.
Has the ext3 some partition header as NTFS do? Or is there a way to locate real start of partition? because testdisk and gdisk shows only this one starting sector for sda6. When I moved the sda6 partition there was space between begin of extended partition and begin of sda6, now there is no space, so that's the main reason of suspecting partition begining is in fact over 100MB further.Current partition schema in attached PNG. Also the swap partition was deleted, I don't know when, now there is 4GB hole.
When I start up the thing says "The symbol 'rtoul' not found. Aborting", then it ether boots from a CD, or beeps offensively at me.
[code]...
I have a GRUB backup pen drive thing, but when I boot from it, it wont accept any keys other than CTRL+ALT+DEL. The partitions can be mounted and are usable, but home is encrypted. I don't want to delete my files.
had trouble viewing partition table using fdisk, now realised i just cudnt view the whole table from Rescue terminal, please remove this thread, i can't find how ))
I was putting the cover back on my Antec p180b, and I guess it got stuck and gave it a hard bump (pretty much broke the cover). As a result, one of my hard drives, a Seagate Barracuda ST3750640AS, got messed up or something. All the other hard drives are fine. It's in an LVM with another hard drive, so now I can't boot up into my computer. So I booted into the installation CD:
Code:
# find /dev/sd[a-c][1-3] /dev/sda1 /dev/sda2
[code]....
This led me to believe the partition was messed up. So I ran cfdisk, and it said something about a missing partition table or something. Additionally, instead of showing the single partition on it, it displays, from my recollection, Pri*Log. To my knowledge, this is the only problem with the hard drive. So now I need to either somehow create or restore the partition table without overwriting the data. Or get a new hard drive, and some how recover the data (LVM, partitions, and all).
I erased my partition table. Can anyone recommend a good method of reconstructing it? And if this is impossible, can anyone recommend a good method of data recovery? I had an ntfs partition with windows 7 and a larger ext3 partition that ran Debian.
I'm running Test-disk on the SystemRescueCD at the moment (cross your fingers).
I used to have a 1TB external drive with lots of stuff on it. But after a reported drive failure during a F11 install the partition table seems to have been lost. (I think F11 toasted it)
Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.2 GB, 1000215724032 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121602 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
[code]....
The drive used to have xfs and a partition. Is there any way to rebuild the partition? Or is my 1TB of data gone forever? The drives seem to be fine now... I just want to get it up enough to either pull any data or just to get a file list. Most of the stuff on the drive was from somewhere else.(ie 300GB of NRN data for all of North America.
I used a Kingston 8Gb flash drive as a live usb recently (copied the live iso image over using dd). I am done with the installations and all but seem to have a problem. i cannot format my flash drive. It now shows as a live CD (800 or so mb). Is there a way to fix the partition table back? I guess if i copy a partition table image from some other 8 gb drive that might fix the problem but i dont have any other flash drives. Is there a solution possible or am i stuck with a live usb forever
I am using a 8 GB usb flash to create a F13 Live Media. I created it using the livecd-creator. But when I use it to try to boot, it says "No bootable partition in table". What's wrong? I did some searches on google, but didn't find a solution.
I've initialize a virtual disk and deleted the partition table didn't notice that i've done that to the wrong one, data still on the physical hard disks but....how I'll get my data back safe without losing it?
I partitioned it using the Acronis (proprietary) partitioning software. I've had to move these around a bit when I initially set it up and at one point grub didnt work anymore. It was after I had to expand my Windows (7) partition. However I'm told that most modern software dont use the same unit of measurement that fdisk still uses 'til this day. Should I even be concerned? I did have to reinstall grub after I initial set all my partitions up. This post is merely a double-check to make sure.
I'm trying to install Fedora 10 from a USB memory stick on which i've installed Fedora-10-x86_64-DVD.iso and, early in the process of configuring the installation, i get messages about both my IDE hard drives having unrecognizable partition tables:
"The partition table on device sda (... my disk data ...) was unreadable. To create new partitions it must be initialized, causing the loss of ALL DATA on this drive."
Same for sdb.
My PC currently runs Fedora Core 4 (yes i know i should have gotten around to upgrading my OS earlier) and yes it recognizes both hard drives just fine.
The answers I've found on the web suggest to backup my drives and repartition. I'm not too hot on that "solution".
explain why a F4 partition table is not recognized by F10?
BTW, I've recently upgraded my motherboard, processor, DVD drive, regrouped both my IDE drives on the same bus, ... I consider it a miracle F4 still runs on this PC (although F4 does not support the motherboard's graphics card, so no X11).
I have a Toshiba laptop, running Vista Home Premium SP2 with AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor, 1 gb ram & 150 gb HDD. I just shrunk the c: drive down to 92 gb to free up 43.5 gb so as to load the Fedora Linux OS into this free space & have a dual-boot configur'n. My problem is the partition table in the MBR. It shows 4 partitions there, so the fedora 13 Live CD which I use to install the OS cannot find a free spot in the partition table. I have the Ultimate Boot CD so I took a look at the MBR. Here are the 4 partitions that occupies its table:
c: is 17% free, d: is 99% free, the other two are 100% free Can you explain what is the purpose of D: ? How about the other two (with no drive letter)? I read somewhere that 'x17' code means 'hidden IFS (ex: HPFS)' & 'x27' means a rescue partition... true?
Would I be safe in replacing the partition table entry for #1, 3 or 4 with an entry for my Linux? (I have an editor that could modify the MBR). Or would it be better to leave MBR alone, put a boot program on a CD or USB stick, which boots Linux from the unallocated 'partition'? (have to somehow manually install Linux to the 43.5 gb area that I freed up).
Is there a difference between using GPT partition table when formating hard drives and MS-DOS partition table? What are the advantages/disadvantages of using either?
I have a Gateway PC, that came with two partitions(not it is more): Vista + Recovery
I just downloaded and installed Fedora(latest image found on the website)
1. Re-sized Vista Partition to 650 Gb(using utility that came with installation), got 50 Gb free space
2. Installed Fedora on Free space
Decided to boot back to Windows(to check if it was left intact) , Windows boots into Recovery mode. It can't find the partition !
Fedora boots up fine. When my PC starts, it give me message that I have 3-5 seconds to choose what system to boot. Disk Utility shows that my HD is split into multiple partitions.
Really need to get back my Windows Partition. All my work is on it.
I'm having an interesting issue with my computer right now. It has Ubuntu lucid installed, which was upgraded from karmic shortly after it became available and was up to date as of September 1.
The issue is as follows: It will not boot the internal hard drive (250GB Seagate barracuda). When I select any of the kernels, it appears to be booting, but 6 Hours later, no joy. If I select any of the Kernels in recovery mode, it does nothing, so again no joy.
It will boot my 500GB removable drive via USB (Samsung on the inside), which contains a backup of my lucid (cloned with Clonezilla) from June-ish, but will not do so if the internal hard drive is hooked up, so I cannot access the internals contents while using the backup USB HD.
Now this is where it get's interesting, at least for me. It will boot up a livecd while the internal HD is connected, which was the only way for me to access the contents of my Ubuntu partitions in the internal HD. I have since pulled the Internal out, removed the USB 500GB HD from it's case, installed it into the internal HD bay, hooked up all the cables, turned the computer on and it did boot. While it did seem to take a long while to boot, I'm hoping this may be because it needs a serious amount of updates (294 updates, 485MB are ready via synaptic!). So I now have placed the 250GB Seagate into the USB HD case and can now access it, but the only contents that can be seen, are the items in my defunct vista partition and I cannot find any remnants of my Ubuntu installation, despite gparted being able to see all of the partitions.
I have searched and didnt find a situation like mine so i thought id ask. i have a dual boot setup on my hp pavillion windows vista /dev/sda1 and backtrack linux 3,while trying to install backtrack 4 (which is ubuntu based) i deleted the former partitons for bt3. im not quite sure what i clicked but using the ubiquity installer it deleted my partition table so now my entire drive is listed as unallocated space. i have some very important files on my windows partition other wise i would just format and start over. how can i restore the partition table and boot to windows to atleast grab the important stuff. the drive hasnt been formatted so the info is still there i just cant get to it anyone have any ideas?
I'm trying to install Ubuntu Netbook 10.10 to an Asus EeePC 1000H (160GB HDD). (I know it will be slow because of Mutter/i945). The usb stick boots just fine but when it comes to the partition part it goes wrong.
I have 3 partitions:Windows 7 (50GB) This will be Ubuntu Netbook (50GB) DATA (60GB)
But the partition manager just shows 160GB of unallocated space. I have tried to reboot and create the partitions with other software (even with GParted LiveCD) but the result is the same.
I had 10.04 in my netbok but something happened, packages failed to install, all sorts of errors when shutting it down, kernel panic when switching on again so I've decided to just install it again. I've got 10.10 running from a LiveUSB drive right now and I'm going through the installer. I want to just tell it to use the exsting partitions, dont bother formatting, just install the new OS on top of the old one so I can keep the user documents etc How do I do this? I picked advanced partition management in the installer, pressed Change on sda1 and gave it a mount point of / but now the "format partition" is ticked and greyed out.. i dont want to format this partition, I just want to install to it
I have just spent dome time using gparted to sort out my partitions. I have a vista partition, a fedora one and a big chunk of unallocated space I wish to use as my data drive.
I want to move my ~ folder to the new partition and have windows/vista access the folder and write to the Documents, Downloads folders etc.
What is the best format to use?
Also I plan to start backing up my partitions to a server, for instance using g4l to save a linux image (maby a windose one too). Is there any benifit in keeping all the hidden files (ones starting with period '.') i.e moving the whole ~ folder or would I be best off leaving the ~ dir and moving the folders I know i use such as ~/Downloads, ~/Documents etc?
And how should i preform the move of all these files? 'mv'? do i need to add any special options?
I have just installed the newest Debian Stable 7.8 release on my new notebook. Before installation I had to free some disk space from the preinstalled Windows7 with ntfsresize and fdisk. In addition to the existing three primary partitions I created an extended one with three logical partitions for /(root) /home and swap, see the output of 'fdisk -lu'
For some reason I put a bootable flag on sda7, and the only small concern during installation was that some BIOS systems might not work with boot-flag no logical drives. Now, every time I boot I get this "Invalid partition table!' message which I must 'enter" away before I get to the GRUB menu.
I'm trying to install Ubuntu Linux 10.04 on my computer with following specs:
ASUS P5KR Mobo HIS 2600XT GFX 160 GB Hitachi Harddisk (SATA) 500 GB Hitachi Harddisk (SATA) - Only for Data.
The 160 GB Harddisk is currently split into 3 main partitions: i) 200 MB created by Win7 setup.
1) Windows 7
2) Leopard OSX
3) Partition formatted in Leopard as Journal which is empty, meaning I can convert this if I want and onto which I will install Ubuntu.
My problem is that despite booting up fine, installer starting and working fine, it cannot however detect my partition table, it thinks its unallocated.
The funny thing is that I can mount the partitions and view the data but the installer however can't see it.
This is maybe the 15th time I've installed an Ubuntu OS in the past two years, and it's the first time I've really been stuck.Not long ago I installed 10.10, with no problems, but a couple days ago I did a fresh install of windows 7, and I planned to re-install ubuntu 10.10 alongside it.Before I installed windows, I created a partition on my 320gb HD, half and half, but while doing this I noticed that gparted would crash if a USB key was plugged in. I mention this because I'm convinced this is related to the problem.
After having installed windows, I went and created a bootable usb key with 10.10 using unetbootin (which I've used once before, but along time ago). I'm unable to make an actual live CD because my disk drive has been broken for the past year - a fact that has never stopped me from installing different distros with a usb key.So the installer starts as usual, but after the 2nd (or 3rd) step (where it says "for best results, make sure that your computer is plugged in, that you have an internet connection, and at least [...] of free space), I click forward, and the little wheel just spins forever,it never advances.I tried everything again with 10.04.1 and I got the same thing, this time after choosing my keyboard layout.
When I simply go to the live distro and then go to install, I see that at that moment, there's a crash report, something about gparted, which I'm assuming is a built-in part of the next step.
To sum up -gparted doesn't seem to like USB keys
-installer won't advance to partition table
-can't use a disk because drive is broken!
My computer is an Acer Aspire 4530, AMD64. The 10.10 and the 10.04.1 installations were both 64bit.
I had a tri boot of Win 7 /XP and Mint...I was using EasyBCD 2.0 as a boot manager...I booted Mint by configuring the NeoGrub option in Easy BCD..I wanted to uninstall Win 7 and so what I did was the following
1. Edited BCD bootloader settings ...Marked XP as my default and deleted Win 7 entry...
2. Logged out and wiped my Win 7 partition
With my fingers crossed , i rebooted but Easy BCD booted flawlessly with 2 choices XP and Mint(GRUB)...As Easy BCD is not meant for XP, I thought of restoring original NTLDR of XP so that things would be in place and thinking that this cud avoid problems of detection by other Linux OS I deleted manually the Easy BCD menu.lst file and NeoGrub.mbr in my root...That was it , after I rebooted, I got boot screen of EasyBCD but whichever option I select,I got an error message that address not Valid-NTLDR not found or something like that I booted my XP live CD and like many times before ran
1.Fixmbr 2.Fixboot 3.bootcfg /rebuild
After that , now when I reboot , I am getting "Invalid Partition Table" On booting from a linux CD , I can see the files are in place..I have to get boot sector and partition table fixed...
I have encountered something of a mystery here. The other day while in /dev I ran 'ls sda*' and noticed this...Quote:
ls -lZ /dev/sda* brw-rw----. root disk system_u:object_r:fixed_disk_device_t:s0 /dev/sda brw-rw----. root disk system_u:object_r:fixed_disk_device_t:s0 /dev/sda1
I ve got a dual boot, XP and FC 12 on a single harddrive. After defragmentation of NTFS partition (With XP installation) cant'boot linux So, rub statrts with boot menu after selecting linux it tries to load linux but prints out some messages again and again (I do not remember contetn of messages) And these messages are circulating
then I used dd to transfer data from the old drive to the new drive. Now I am unable to boot into the new drive. I tried to boot again from the live-CD but fdisk reports that the drive has no partition table. I can still mount the devices (e.g. mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/sda3) and I can see all the files. But without a partition table, I can't set one partition to be bootable. Why doesn't gparted create a partition table? it created the filesystems just fine. how do I boot into the new disk? What do I have to do to make grub handle the new disk?
