[TriLUG] fdisk to edit partition table: help please

[Koleman Strumpf]

I have a dual partition Pentium II with *GB IDE hard drive (a CCI
machine) with RedHat v5.2, and my lilo recently stopped working (due to a
foolish upgrade on my Win OS) --> as I describe below my partition table
seems to have gotten messed up. My rescue disk does not seem to function
(the PC just freezes up after spinning the floppy). At this point I am
just trying to salvage some files and then re-install if needed.

I got a hold of  tomsrtbt v 1.7.358. When I try and mount my linux
partition I have problems. No problem mounting the Win partition (hda) but
when I try and mount Linux (hdb) I get:
# mount /dev/hda2 /test2
/dev/hda2: Unknown error
...
Transaction block size = 512
VFS: Can't find a valid MSDOS filesystem on dev 3:02.
mount: you must specify the filesystem

More information on the file system does not seem to help:
# mount -t ext2 /dev/hda2 /test2
attempted to access beyond end of device
03:02: rw=0, want=2, limit=1
EXT2-fs: unable to read superblock
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda2,
        or too many mounted fule systems

When I first fdisk I get:
# fdisk /dev/hda
The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 1025.
This is larger than 1024, and may cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., LILO)
...

Also, when I print the partition table I get,
# fdisk -l
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 5 will be corrected by
w(rite)

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 1025 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

Device    Boot  Start   End     Blocks          Id      System
/dev/hda1 *     1       262     2096608+       	6       DOS 16-bit >=32M
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary:
        phys=(519, 127, 63) should be (519, 254, 63)
/dev/hda2       262     514     2028096         5       Extended
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary:
        phys=(1022, 127, 63) should be (1022, 254, 63)
...


Finally, here is some more details:
# rescuept /dev/hda

# total size 16481808 sectors
unit: sectors
# 2047 MB       fat partition (type 6): sectors              63-  4193279
# sector 4209351 looks like an ext2 superblock copy #1;
# in a partition covering sectors 4192965-4514264
# found all preceding superblocks OK
# Warning: overlapping partitions?
#  157 MB       ext2 partition (type 83): sectors       4192965-  4514264
# 1945 MB       ext2 partition (type 83): sectors       4514265-  8498384
#    0 MB       candidate ext pt (type 5): sectors      8498385-  8498385
#  133 MB          found in ept (type 82): sectors      8498448-  8771489
#  204 MB          found in ept (type 83): sectors      8771489-  9189179
# 3004 MB          found in ept (type 83): sectors      9189243- 15342074
#  518 MB          found in ept (type 83): sectors     15342138- 16402364
# 3859 MB       extended part ok (type 5): sectors      8498385- 16402364
/dev/hda0 :  start=      63, size= 4193217, Id= 6
/dev/hda0 :  start= 4192965, size=  321300, Id=83
/dev/hda0 :  start= 4514265, size= 3984120, Id=83
/dev/hda0 :  start= 8498385, size= 7903980, Id= 5
/dev/hda0 :  start= 8498448, size=  273042, Id=82
/dev/hda0 :  start= 8771489, size=  417627, Id=83
/dev/hda0 :  start= 9189243, size= 6152832, Id=83
/dev/hda0 :  start=15342138, size= 1060227, Id=83



Pretty clearly there is something wrong as the windows partition (type
6) is overlapping with the next partition (type 83).

Anyway, I was told over at the tomsrtbt listserv to "use fdisk to edit
your partition table to those beginnings and  endings [listed in
rescuept], and then try to mount the filesystems, in the most brute force
approach." As a newbie this is all beyond me --> I could not figure out
from the man page or messing around with the fdisk menu how this is
done. Does anyone have any suggestions (perhaps using an example with the
type 82 partitions above) on how to proceed?

Thanks in advance,
Koleman



Koleman