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moljac024

Member

From: Serbia

Registered: 2008-01-29

Posts: 2,676

DD'ed the wrong device - External hdd partition table obliterated

The title says it all. This is actually my first, so I popped my own cherry.

I managed to dd the first 87 MB of my hdd before realizing what i did and stopping it.
I'm running testdisk on it right now, but in case that fails, anything else I can try?

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The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
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But if they tell you that I've lost my mind, maybe it's not gone just a little hard to find...

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: DD'ed the wrong device - External hdd partition table obliterated

gpart was mentioned in a similar case, but OP opted for a clean install: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=108101

Last edited by karol (2010-11-10 18:10:13)

brisbin33

Member

From: boston, ma

Registered: 2008-07-24

Posts: 1,796

Website

Re: DD'ed the wrong device - External hdd partition table obliterated

well, the first 87MB are likely gone.  you could use dd_rescue to move everything that's left to an image, reformat, then put it back.

sorry man...

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//github/

moljac024

Member

From: Serbia

Registered: 2008-01-29

Posts: 2,676

Re: DD'ed the wrong device - External hdd partition table obliterated

If it's only the first 87MB that's not a problem, but so far testdisk isn't giving results...

dd_rescue sounds interesting...

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The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But if they tell you that I've lost my mind, maybe it's not gone just a little hard to find...

some-guy94

Member

Registered: 2009-08-15

Posts: 360

Re: DD'ed the wrong device - External hdd partition table obliterated

If it's only the first 87MB that's not a problem, but so far testdisk isn't giving results...

dd_rescue sounds interesting...

I remember deleting my partition table, it wasn't the first 87 MB or anything, but I got my /proc/partitions and used that with parted's rescue command.

dunz0r

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2009-03-30

Posts: 258

Website

Re: DD'ed the wrong device - External hdd partition table obliterated

I once tried to install Windows 2000 Professional on a partition on one of my SATA-drives, the installation completely nuked the partition table for some reason.

The solution: I just created an identical partition setup on the drive and there was much rejoicing.

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RTFM or GTFO
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karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: DD'ed the wrong device - External hdd partition table obliterated

I once tried to install Windows 2000 Professional on a partition on one of my SATA-drives, the installation completely nuked the partition table for some reason.

The solution: I just created an identical partition setup on the drive and there was much rejoicing.

If the underlying partitions are OK, testdisk should be able recreate a partition table for them just fine.