
This file is intended to be a help list in case that your partition
table is corrupted or damaged and you will try to correct it yourself.
Later on I will try to include some more general text about error
recovery, but now as a start it is mostly a list of helpful tools.


Make sure that you have or obtain the necessary partition
table knowledge so that you understand what the problem
is and how to fix it.

Always make a printout of the partition table before you alter it!


Places to visit for introduction to partition tables and hard disks:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
  * http://www.users.intercom.com/~ranish/part/primer.htm.
    (really excellent)
  * http://www.tomshardware.com/hdd.html.



Programs for printing the partition table:
------------------------------------------
  * printpar of course :)
  * partinfo.exe which is part of Partition Magic from Powerquest.
    Although Partition Magic is commercial, the partinfo program may
    be freely copied. ftp://ftp.powerquest.com/pub/utilities/partinfo.exe
  * part.exe, Partition Manager by Mikhail Ranish (not to be mixed up
    with Partition Magic). http://www.intercom.com/~ranish/part/
  * linux fdisk (use the print command in expert mode)
  * diskedit.exe (part of Norton Utilities) can also be used for
    printing the partition table, but this is a bit cumbersome for
    extended partitions. http://www.symantec.com/
  * fips.exe will also give a printout and lets you save the
    mbr to a file, but fips does not support extended/logical partitions.
    http://www.igd.fhg.de/~aschaefe/fips/

Note that not all of these programs will give a complete table printout
like printpar does, but comparing the output of printpar with another
independent source is good for the reliability; after all printpar
could be wrong.



Programs for editing the partition table:
------------------------------------------
  * part.exe, Partition Manager by Mikhail Ranish (not to be mixed up
    with Partition Magic). Use page-up/down for navigating between
    mbr/drive tables. http://www.intercom.com/~ranish/part/
  * diskedit.exe, part of Norton Utilities. Select "physical sector"
    from the object menu, and then choose "view as partition table"
    from the view menu.  http://www.symantec.com/
  * fdisk for dos, windows, os/2, linux, freebsd etc.
    Note that fdisk generally expects the partition table to be correct
    and may not work properly if there are errors. fdisk programs also
    tend to be somewhat limited in that they only let you delete or add
    complete partition entries and give little control of the individual
    entry fields. However, if the error is just that one partition is
    missing, adding a new corresponding entry with fdisk might be all
    that is needed. Fdisk for dos and windows are very limited and I
    would be _extremely_ sceptical to use them for fixing errors. Use
    fdisk for linux instead.


Programs for guessing where missing partition are located:
----------------------------------------------------------
  * find_drive_table (part of printpar)
  * gpart by Michail Brzitwa <mb@ichabod.han.de>.
    http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/user/76201/gpart/
  * guess_parttable by Kjetil T. Homme <kjetilho@ifi.uio.no>.
    ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/people/kjetilho/guess_parttable.c

These programs are not using the partition table but scans the disk
trying to find valid file systems or drive tables.

For best results try all three and compare their suggestions!



Programs for fixing errors in the partition table:
--------------------------------------------------

  * Such programs does not exist!

Seriously though, there exists some that tries to do this, but their
success is not guaranteed; they might fix the problem and they might
make it worse.

Fixing a partition table can be a non-trivial task and impossible to
create a computer based algorithm for solving. For example if one or more
partition table entries completely disappears, how shall a program find
out that there indeed are some entries missing, how many and the exact
size of the missing partitions by just analyzing the partition table?
Or if the partition table contains random bit errors, how should a
program be able to determine which bits that are wrong?

The above is of course a rather pessimistic point of view, because there
do exists some errors that programs are able to correct, but my advice
is to not trust any of these programs and rather try to solve the
problem manually.

Programs known trying to fix the partition table include fdisk of
various kinds and Norton disk doctor.


