Lost MBR on disk

 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Special Forums Hardware Boot Loaders Lost MBR on disk
# 1  
Old 12-29-2010
Lost MBR on disk

trying to recover a lost partition table, where the signature (0x55AA) has been lost, though attempting to restore using a number of tools (fdisk, testdisk et al) the write fails.

also the os is unable to read the disk geometry correctly, after attempting to correct the geometry, the updated geometry fails to save.

im lost as to how to get this rebuilt partition table to save.
# 2  
Old 12-29-2010
You have not told us what operating system(s) you are using, but assuming that you are using some version of GNU/Linux then the following generalized method should work:

- Using your installation media boot into linux rescue mode. You should end up at a root shell prompt with your root file system mounted somewhere like /mnt/sysimage.
- chroot /mnt/sysimage (or whatever is your mount point)
- grub-install /dev/hda (or whatever is your boot disk)

Obviously, if you tell us more about your particular configuration, we can provide more exact or more appropriate instructions.
# 3  
Old 12-30-2010
Hi

thanks for your response, im using Ubuntu 10.4, and luckily its not my boot disk thats failed, but my secondary data HDD. Have a backup of most of it, but the newer stuff (ie my current work) is only on that disk. of which i cannot use.

disk is a 250Gb WD Scorpio formatted with a single NTFS (came out of my windows box) partition taking the entire disk

hope this helps shed some light
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

9 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Hardware

Hard Drives and MBR

Hello everyone. I have a question which I may know the answer to, I'm just looking for a confirmation. When it comes to the MBR of a hard drive, i've read in multiple sources that it's always located in the first sector of the hard drive. Is the MBR there from the factory? When I buy a new blank... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: Lost in Cyberia
3 Replies

2. Solaris

13 disk raidz2 pool lost

Hi guys, I appreciate any help in this regard, we have lost sensitive data in the company. One box with 2 disk mirrored and a 3ware controller handling 13 disks in a raidz2 pool. Suddenly the box restart and keeps "Reading ZFS config" for hours. Unplugging disk by disk we isolate the disk... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: tatxo
3 Replies

3. Fedora

Disk Paritioning Scheme--GPT or MBR

Hi, I just built myself a new machine which has an ASUS motherboard with is UEFI based. I noticed after I installed Fedora 17 that my sda is MBR and my sdb is GPT: sda is a ssd drive. Should the ssd drive be GPT or is MBR okay? sda is 60Gb drive. (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: mojoman
3 Replies

4. Solaris

Lost Root Password on VXVM Encapsulated Root Disk

Hi All Hope it's okay to post on this sub-forum, couldn't find a better place I've got a 480R running solaris 8 with veritas volume manager managing all filesystems, including an encapsulated root disk (I believe the root disk is encapsulated as one of the root mirror disks has an entry under... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: sunnyd76
1 Replies

5. SCO

Backup MBR an Partition Table

hi How can I backup MBR an Partition Table of SCO 5.0.6? (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: ccc
7 Replies

6. Ubuntu

Disk Space lost mysteriously upon breaking a process.

Hi All, Today when I was working on a script to generate custom wordlist. So I ran a script and the output was directed to /tmp. The disk space was around 19 gb. While the script was running, I decided to direct the o/p file to my 1TB drive. So I broke the run using Ctrl + C. Now when I... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: morningSunshine
4 Replies

7. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

About MBR,Boot Loader programe.

Hi all, I am newbie here.I want to know what is MBR,boot loader & boot strap programe. What is procedure of loading OS in to memory. Thanx in advance:) (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: vishwasrao
1 Replies

8. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

How to zero a disk (especially MBR)?

I'm confused. Originally I did telinit 1 cp /dev/sda /dev/sdb where sda is my boot disk and sdb is a USB disk. This probably copied my MBR. Since /dev/sdb is 300GB and /dev/sda only 160GB I had a bunch of space left which I decided to experiment with by creating partitions of various... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: siegfried
1 Replies

9. Filesystems, Disks and Memory

Lost Data Lost Admin

First time so excuse my ignorance please. I may not be accurately describing the issue. I have inherited a small lab mostly SUN V120s. We lost power and are trying to recover. Nope no backups... The primary issue I have is 1 box is an Oracle Server. It has 2 36Gb harddrives. I am able to... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: murphsr
3 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question