conoverc73
asked on
Help!!! Lost my windows 2000 disk configuration
I recently added a new disk to my server. I then clicked on an existing disk in the server and chose to expand it by using the new disk I just added.
That worked fine. I then realized that I forgot to format the new drive so I clicked on delete partition and it deleted it , but it also deleted the partition that I was trying to extend.
Now I have two drives that are showing "not allocated".
Is there anyway for me to restore the disk configuration. I never backed it up to floppy before so I am hoping it is stored somewhere on the C drive and that I can just restore it from tape backup.
That worked fine. I then realized that I forgot to format the new drive so I clicked on delete partition and it deleted it , but it also deleted the partition that I was trying to extend.
Now I have two drives that are showing "not allocated".
Is there anyway for me to restore the disk configuration. I never backed it up to floppy before so I am hoping it is stored somewhere on the C drive and that I can just restore it from tape backup.
So you can boot your system still and that means you did not delete the System Partition (or volume if it is dynamic disk).. And you have a good backup on tape of your data partition that you deleted..??
Not quite sure what you are asking if this is the case... once you delete a partition, you cannot get it back.. But you can certainly create another partition and restore it from backup..
Not quite sure what you are asking if this is the case... once you delete a partition, you cannot get it back.. But you can certainly create another partition and restore it from backup..
ASKER
Problem solved. I gave microsoft support a call and they had me use Disk Probe (a windows 2000 resource kit) tool to restore the partition table on the disk that had all my data on it.
Please close this case.
Thanks.
Please close this case.
Thanks.
nice one...
Very nice... and good information for all of us..!!
Thanks for posting..
FE
Thanks for posting..
FE
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,6170,00.asp - Review of RPM
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/ranish.html Another review
Yucky!!! I've suggested this program to many before 'Ranish Partition Manager' if it was commericial it'd deserve an infomercial and a bunch of praise from a bunch of celebrities. It is found at 'http://www.ranish.com/part/' Inside PART.EXE, select a Windows 2000 drive and change it to FAT32 DO NOT SAVE then just memorize the way the configuration looks (in the bottom panel with the disk number/label etc) and press F3 to put it backj to NTFS...
Select empty space on your drive, create a FAT32 partion with the Insert button, then select 'starting cylinder' and press '+' on the numpad or whatever. If you see something that looks like it did when you selected the NTFS volume as FAT32, stop searching and make the beginning cylinder the first like one that looks like it fits (if it looks like it did when you viewed the NTFS volume as FAT32 then it should be good)... By 'fits' I mean you found the FAT of the partition you wanna restore. Ending cylinder in my opinion should be the last cylinder on the disk but if you can help it DO NOT write to the volume because you might overwrite the FAT of the other partition which you haven't found yet... Also take care that the first entry...
I'll try to explain again better this time because that seemed like too much text.
Use PART.EXE. In the botton panel select an NTFS volume, press Insert, and select FAT32. DON'T SAVE. Mewmorize how the tables in the bottom middle panel look, then press F3 to restore FAT32 back to NTFS. Create an empty partition by selecting the empty space where the disk was, press Insert again and select FAT32...
....Select "Starting Cylinder" and press "+" to increase until you see entries in the bottom-middle table that resemble the ones you just saw when the NTFS was being seen as FAT32. If you find something, I suggest you save, except you risk overwriting what is on the partion you are overlapping.. You said there are 2 partitions and the by default the partition you just created is the maximum size it could be.
A BETTE IDEA is to instead of searching the cylinders with the '+' button is to search the first few sectors right after the partition which you have not deleted. To view sectors instead of cylinders press F4. SO select starting sector and + and - your way thru it.
!There's a good chance that the first partition right after the not-deleted partition is actually the right place to create the new partition so you may not need to do the scrolling at all... In this case the instructions would be really short:
Open part.exe. Select the empty space, press Insert, select the filesystem of the deleted partition (Was it Windows NTFS?), press enter, and press F2 to save. This may in fact recover your first partition if it does YIPPIE AND YAY for now you may reboot to see the lost partition.
For the other partition you must remember which cylinder or sector it began at. Chances are it began at the beginning/end of a cylinder so you just need to search cylinders (faster than sectors) to find the 2nd disk. WHere it says 'size' or whatever you can aproximate the beginning of the 2nd partition and begin your 2nd search by creating a new partition on the disk. SO if your partition was 20gb find out how many kilobytes that was and begin searching 20gb after the beginning of the first partition (confuse!)It's OK if it overlaps the other one while searching for the 2nd partition. If you find the 2nd partition you can reduce the size of the 1st partition until it is (probably it'd be here...) just before the beginning of the 2nd partition.
So to summarize use part.exe to search your disk's cylinders for the 2 boot records of the lost disks and create partitions USING THIS NOT WINDOWS DISK ADMIN OR FDISK. First find out what an NTFS looks like when interpeted as a FAT32, then search the disk's cylinders for another NTFS that looks like the NTFS interpreted as the FAT32...
There may be a utility like Partition Magic or something that can help you. If my instructions were a bit confusing then you may be able to figure out how to use part.exe properly. If you've already created a partition (if the beginning of the partition overlapped the beginning of the lost partition) in WIndows Disk Administrator then you may or may not be out of luck but try to restore the partitions before creating new ones.
Also a program called 'winhex' http://www.winhex.com can view the raw contents of a disk, and show you info on boot records based on its very own templates. Here's what to do with that...
Open winhex and go to Disk Editor. Select a working NTFS partition. Look at the beginning of the gobblygook and like, copy a few characters from it. Press End to go to end of partition and look for where it says 'sector' (I think it's in a status bar near the bottom of screen.). The ending sector of this disk should be the current sector. Close the drive-editting thingy and go back to Disk Editor, then select DISKS rather than drives. This'd be the raw contens of the entire disk rather than a partition. FInd the 'go to sector' feature and go the ending sector of the working partition +1. Go to the menus and find 'templates...' Select 'Boot Record of a NTFS Partition'. If it asks you if you want to continue, like even though the template isn't working or something click 'yes' a few times.
-- --
oo
____
Unlike part.exe winhex can see NTFS volumes properly but it's more difficult to much with them and you have to edit the master boot record (preferably with part.exe) seperately. ANyway at this point: You should see a screen that shows you the partition's label, beginning sector, end sector or something and some other stuff. If it's there, find the Ending Sector and use that as a reference for where the end and of this partition ends and the other one begins (the other 2nd partition likely begins 1 sector after this one.) Or look for 'number of sectors'. You can also enter in 'number of sectors' in PART.EXE.. But you can't view the info about an NTFS in part.exe so that's what WinHex is for.
RPM! Winhex! Yay!
I hope it's helpful!
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/ranish.html Another review
Yucky!!! I've suggested this program to many before 'Ranish Partition Manager' if it was commericial it'd deserve an infomercial and a bunch of praise from a bunch of celebrities. It is found at 'http://www.ranish.com/part/' Inside PART.EXE, select a Windows 2000 drive and change it to FAT32 DO NOT SAVE then just memorize the way the configuration looks (in the bottom panel with the disk number/label etc) and press F3 to put it backj to NTFS...
Select empty space on your drive, create a FAT32 partion with the Insert button, then select 'starting cylinder' and press '+' on the numpad or whatever. If you see something that looks like it did when you selected the NTFS volume as FAT32, stop searching and make the beginning cylinder the first like one that looks like it fits (if it looks like it did when you viewed the NTFS volume as FAT32 then it should be good)... By 'fits' I mean you found the FAT of the partition you wanna restore. Ending cylinder in my opinion should be the last cylinder on the disk but if you can help it DO NOT write to the volume because you might overwrite the FAT of the other partition which you haven't found yet... Also take care that the first entry...
I'll try to explain again better this time because that seemed like too much text.
Use PART.EXE. In the botton panel select an NTFS volume, press Insert, and select FAT32. DON'T SAVE. Mewmorize how the tables in the bottom middle panel look, then press F3 to restore FAT32 back to NTFS. Create an empty partition by selecting the empty space where the disk was, press Insert again and select FAT32...
....Select "Starting Cylinder" and press "+" to increase until you see entries in the bottom-middle table that resemble the ones you just saw when the NTFS was being seen as FAT32. If you find something, I suggest you save, except you risk overwriting what is on the partion you are overlapping.. You said there are 2 partitions and the by default the partition you just created is the maximum size it could be.
A BETTE IDEA is to instead of searching the cylinders with the '+' button is to search the first few sectors right after the partition which you have not deleted. To view sectors instead of cylinders press F4. SO select starting sector and + and - your way thru it.
!There's a good chance that the first partition right after the not-deleted partition is actually the right place to create the new partition so you may not need to do the scrolling at all... In this case the instructions would be really short:
Open part.exe. Select the empty space, press Insert, select the filesystem of the deleted partition (Was it Windows NTFS?), press enter, and press F2 to save. This may in fact recover your first partition if it does YIPPIE AND YAY for now you may reboot to see the lost partition.
For the other partition you must remember which cylinder or sector it began at. Chances are it began at the beginning/end of a cylinder so you just need to search cylinders (faster than sectors) to find the 2nd disk. WHere it says 'size' or whatever you can aproximate the beginning of the 2nd partition and begin your 2nd search by creating a new partition on the disk. SO if your partition was 20gb find out how many kilobytes that was and begin searching 20gb after the beginning of the first partition (confuse!)It's OK if it overlaps the other one while searching for the 2nd partition. If you find the 2nd partition you can reduce the size of the 1st partition until it is (probably it'd be here...) just before the beginning of the 2nd partition.
So to summarize use part.exe to search your disk's cylinders for the 2 boot records of the lost disks and create partitions USING THIS NOT WINDOWS DISK ADMIN OR FDISK. First find out what an NTFS looks like when interpeted as a FAT32, then search the disk's cylinders for another NTFS that looks like the NTFS interpreted as the FAT32...
There may be a utility like Partition Magic or something that can help you. If my instructions were a bit confusing then you may be able to figure out how to use part.exe properly. If you've already created a partition (if the beginning of the partition overlapped the beginning of the lost partition) in WIndows Disk Administrator then you may or may not be out of luck but try to restore the partitions before creating new ones.
Also a program called 'winhex' http://www.winhex.com can view the raw contents of a disk, and show you info on boot records based on its very own templates. Here's what to do with that...
Open winhex and go to Disk Editor. Select a working NTFS partition. Look at the beginning of the gobblygook and like, copy a few characters from it. Press End to go to end of partition and look for where it says 'sector' (I think it's in a status bar near the bottom of screen.). The ending sector of this disk should be the current sector. Close the drive-editting thingy and go back to Disk Editor, then select DISKS rather than drives. This'd be the raw contens of the entire disk rather than a partition. FInd the 'go to sector' feature and go the ending sector of the working partition +1. Go to the menus and find 'templates...' Select 'Boot Record of a NTFS Partition'. If it asks you if you want to continue, like even though the template isn't working or something click 'yes' a few times.
-- --
oo
____
Unlike part.exe winhex can see NTFS volumes properly but it's more difficult to much with them and you have to edit the master boot record (preferably with part.exe) seperately. ANyway at this point: You should see a screen that shows you the partition's label, beginning sector, end sector or something and some other stuff. If it's there, find the Ending Sector and use that as a reference for where the end and of this partition ends and the other one begins (the other 2nd partition likely begins 1 sector after this one.) Or look for 'number of sectors'. You can also enter in 'number of sectors' in PART.EXE.. But you can't view the info about an NTFS in part.exe so that's what WinHex is for.
RPM! Winhex! Yay!
I hope it's helpful!
In case that didn't work others should comment too
conoverc73, since this issue is resolved, you should post to community support asking that the question be closed and points refunded
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did you do a system state backup, or create an emergency repair disk??