Re: Corrupted Partition Table (solution)
Robert L Harris (nomad@rocky.orci.com)
Fri, 26 Sep 1997 12:56:11 -0600 (MDT)
>
> Solution to corrupted logical partition table
> ---------------------------------------------
>
> Hi all,
>
> a few months ago I mailed about the problem that I had a corrupted
> partition table every now and then. John Fort mailed me how to fix
> this problem. I took a month extra to test his solution and
> it seems that it indeed solves the problem !
>
> Problem description:
> --------------------
>
> Every few months - sometimes more often - the logical partition
> table gets corrupted. This can be the first logical partition
> (and all other logical partitions) or the second logical partition
> (and all partitions above) and sometimes the third or higher
> logical partition (and all logical partitions above).
>
> The corruption exists of a corrupted link in the chain of partitions
> or a moved partition without correctly updated link.
>
> It happened to me most when I editted a large file, preferably one
> that made my partition run out of space (but not necessarily).
>
> Note that the corruption of the logical partitions has no effect
> on the working of the system, until you reboot. And in general
> is only visible by running fdisk (which I have done now every
> 5 minutes, automatically, for over a year - to be able to immedeately
> detect the problem).
>
> Solution
> --------
>
> If your partition table is corrupted then the solution is to
> run fdisk and re-enter (by hand) all starts and ends of the
> corrupted partitions, and write the partition table to disk
> again. This totally restores everything to normal.
>
> A permanent solution can be adchieved by letting the FIRST
> logical partition start at the same cylinder number as the
> extended partition starts on (Thanks to John Fort for finding
> out about this).
>
> Here is an example of my partition table:
>
> Disk /dev/hda: 128 heads, 63 sectors, 779 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 8064 * 512 bytes
>
> Device Boot Begin Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/hda1 1 1 261 1052320+ 6 DOS 16-bit >=32M
> /dev/hda2 262 262 294 133056 82 Linux swap
> /dev/hda3 * 295 295 306 48384 83 Linux native
> /dev/hda4 307 307 779 1907136 5 Extended
> /dev/hda5 307 307 356 201568+ 83 Linux native
> /dev/hda6 358 358 382 100800 83 Linux native
> /dev/hda7 383 383 407 100800 83 Linux native
> /dev/hda8 408 408 432 100800 83 Linux native
> /dev/hda9 433 433 444 48384 83 Linux native
> /dev/hda10 445 445 456 48384 83 Linux native
> /dev/hda11 457 457 481 100800 83 Linux native
> /dev/hda12 482 482 506 100800 83 Linux native
> /dev/hda13 507 507 556 201600 83 Linux native
> /dev/hda14 557 557 779 899136 83 Linux native
>
> As you can see, /dev/hda5 start on cyl 307, which is the same as
> where /dev/hda4 starts. This alone was enough to fix the problem.
> (The hole between /dev/hda5 and /dev/hda6 is because I only moved
> /dev/hda5 down; before /dev/hda5 started at 308).
>
> Carlo Wood
I don't have that many partitions, but I cheat by not using extended
or logical. I put 2 primary partitions on a 4Gig disk using fdisk
in linux then format. Windows doesn't have any problems and it works
great.
Robert
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert L. Harris | If NT is the answer,
System Engineer For Hire. \_ you don't understand the question.
Email:
Robert@ast.lmco.com
http://www.orci.com/~nomad
DISCLAIMER:
These are MY OPINIONS ALONE. I speak for no-one else.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);'