Partition recovery help

**Idenheart** · 10-29-2006, 01:29 AM

hey I'm not completely sure where this subject should go so please don't flame me if this is the wrong place. I just needed to know if there was a way to recover broken partitions using knoppix or just recover data from broken partitions. My mother's windows partition got corrupted and it's pretty vital to get some important files from her computer. I was just wanting to know if there was a way and if you know how then how. Thank you so much.

**Harry Kuhman** · 10-29-2006, 01:43 AM

if it's the partition table itself that has been damaged and not file information contained inside the partition, type man gpart in a console (command prompt) and read the documentation on the gpart command.

**Idenheart** · 10-29-2006, 02:02 AM

Okey thank alot. It's scanning right now, The only thing is it's coming up with lots of read errors. Will this effect the scan that badly?
Also how can I get it to implement the newly scanned table?

One last thing, just in case it's not the partition table is there a way to still get files from the broken partition?

This knoppix thing is very interesting, I bet I could make a career out of just using this. Brings ideas. I also looked into Helix, VERY interesting!

thanks

**Harry Kuhman** · 10-29-2006, 03:18 AM

Helix was going to be my other suggestion. Linux can do some magic things, even guess at the partition table, but if the data is too ruined then there are cases where it just can't fix all damage that Windows can cause or from a drive going bad (one other commercial tool you might want to look at for a drive with lots of read errors is SpinRite). The man page for gpart should give you all of the options to tell gpart to actually write the change (running Windows right now, not Linux, so I can't easily look myself).

**Idenheart** · 10-29-2006, 06:31 AM

hmmm....

I'll have to download Helix first.

But just say the partition can't be fixed is there any way using knoppix to still just get the important data off it?

just wondering?

**Jacky** · 10-30-2006, 07:08 AM

Hello there, pardon me for coming into this conversation.

Photorec (which is on the Knoppix CD) does a pretty good job of recovering files. In my experience, it can recover some files when the partition table has been damaged and even after a reformat/repartition. It does this by scanning the raw bytes for sequences which match a certain signature. Read more about it here: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

The limitation is that it can only recognise (and rescue) certain types of files (it was originally designed to rescue digital image files, hence Photorec). Also if the disk is highly fragmented, then the chances of recovery are much reduced. In my experience, I have been able to recover most but not all files. Pictures and documents do quite well, but mpg and movie files tend to have a lower success rate.

Regards.

**Stocky** · 10-30-2006, 04:58 PM

Please forgive my newness...
I have to use Knoppix to get my pc booted because of a mepis delete I did off a double OS lappy...
I erased mepis... now grub holds me hostage to anything but a linux program...
My pc came with xppero installed... no discs...
but I have lappy "recovery" discs that will work... but grub wont let them load.
Please tell me... step by step if possoble (??) how to use knoppix to get to a "line" where I can neter fdisk... or fixboot or any other command that would help???
I'm fritzed beyond belief...
Thanks,
Stocky

**Stocky** · 11-01-2006, 04:31 PM

Someone suggested I enter Knoppix, go to a command line and enter...
SUDO TESTDISK.... then at the 3rd or 4th choice... choose WRITE MBR...
then enter YES (Y) as to the ques are you sure... now my MS is back...
and I'm up and running.
Thanks for all/any help.
Regards,
Stocky