Hard drive fatal error!

zephyrus17 · 2009-10-31 05:54:43

My drive has a 400Gb shared Data partition in the middle and a 30Gb Windows 7 partition at the very back. When I got into cfdisk to install Arch, it said I had an "logical partitions overlap" problem in sda7. So I put in gparted and deleted the proposed linux partitions (keeping the W7 and Data partition). But when I put in Arch again, cfdisk now just says

FATAL ERROR: Bad primary partition 1: Logical Partitions Overlap

And in gparted from my Ubuntu LiveCD, my entire sda drive is labelled "unallocated". I hope this doesn't mean I lost all my data

EDIT: Also, it also says the DiskLabelType is unrecognised
EDIT2: Running gparted from the Terminal gives Can't have overlapping partitions

Last edited by zephyrus17 (2009-10-31 06:41:18)

mikesd · 2009-10-31 07:12:56

Sounds like your partition table is hosed. Your partitions *should* be OK though it is difficult to say for sure without knowing exactly what was done to the disk.

If you don't have a backup of the data on that disk I would suggest taking an image of it if you have enough storage before trying anything else.

testdisk may be of help finding your data and windows partitions.

zephyrus17 · 2009-10-31 07:15:04

how would I do an image of the disk and testdisk from an Ubuntu LiveCD?

grey · 2009-10-31 07:30:19

I'm not sure if ubuntu has testdisk, but SystemRescueCD does. It might be better suited to your needs at this point.

zephyrus17 · 2009-10-31 08:19:17

All right thanks! I'll give it a shot. Will chime back later.

zephyrus17 · 2009-10-31 11:33:10

Hmm.. I managed to use testdisk to delete the linux partitions, but I still can't fix the multiple cluster error. gParted says to run

chkdsk /f

but it says it can't lock my drive. How do I release my drive so it can be locked?

R00KIE · 2009-10-31 15:18:11

Let me guess, you have used gparted to resize and move your partitions, I have had the same problem, since then I don't trust gparted (parted actually, gparted provides the nice gui) to resize/move partitions.

Try to backup all the important data if you can still mount the partitions and use sfdisk to clean the mess (or part of it), then use cfdisk to create the partitions again and format them in the cli (or you can use gparted now, I've found it to be safe to just format with gparted).

Gen2ly · 2009-10-31 18:21:04

Just FYI, I like to use Parted Magic (which has testdisk on it) for rescue type things like this.

zephyrus17 · 2009-11-01 00:43:37

I've repaired it, partially, with testdisk SystemRescueCD. And I can access my W7 and Data partition. But when I try to install Arch cfdisk still says

FATAL ERROR: Bad primary partition 1: Partition ends in the final partial cylinder

oddly, when I tried to install Ubuntu in it, it's fine.

R00KIE · 2009-11-01 01:39:10

cfdisk does a good job at making sure things are how they are supposed to be, partitions should start and end on cylinder boundaries, not somewhere in between, otherwise you may run into problems later on, programs may complain but still do operations on partition (and maybe fail miserably) or just complain and refuse to do anything so they don't cause data loss.

Like I said before, backup your important data and start from scratch and make sure everything is as it should be (read partition sizes and layout as you want and cfdisk not complaining about anything).

After doing a backup maybe you can try gparted again, ask to resize the offending partition and apply the changes, ask for a change then apply it, don't queue many operations.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-10-31 05:54:43

Hard drive fatal error!

#2 2009-10-31 07:12:56

Re: Hard drive fatal error!

#3 2009-10-31 07:15:04

Re: Hard drive fatal error!

#4 2009-10-31 07:30:19

Re: Hard drive fatal error!

#5 2009-10-31 08:19:17

Re: Hard drive fatal error!

#6 2009-10-31 11:33:10

Re: Hard drive fatal error!

#7 2009-10-31 15:18:11

Re: Hard drive fatal error!

#8 2009-10-31 18:21:04

Re: Hard drive fatal error!

#9 2009-11-01 00:43:37

Re: Hard drive fatal error!

#10 2009-11-01 01:39:10

Re: Hard drive fatal error!

Board footer