Rebuilding partition table

Hi! I had a thread going a few days ago where I mentioned that I had an external 200gb hard drive that lost the partition table ( thread link ). I can access all the data by using the program listed in that thread, Partition Find & Mount. It works beautifully, but it does not permanently repair the drive, it only allows me to access the data and then move it to a different drive, or burn it, or whatever. To save time (and CDs and DVDs) I'd really like to be able to simply rebuild the partition table. I've tried using various partition tools to set the partition to "active" it's always greyed out and the drive is always listed as "unallocated". I could just move everything off the drive, reformat it, and move everything back, but that will take A LOT of time (we're talking about 150gb of music and pictures and videos).

THANKS!

[dlb]

(oh yeah- this external hard drive is primarily used with XP systems, but I don't think that matters; obviously, the drive is/was formatted NTFS)

 

If you have issues with a hdd and have valuable data on it, then in my opinion it would be sheer madness not to move the data from it whilst you still have the chance.

However in respect of rebuilding the mbr/partition tables, have you tried to use BiNG -->select the unallocated space and hit undelete.

Prior to doing the above I would make sure that any data you have on the drive is saved.

Good Luck

 

Nope, I haven't.... I'm assuming you're referring to BootIt Next Generation. I'm not sure that their boot disc will recognize external USB drives, but maybe (hopefully) it does.

Thanks for the suggestion! I've used BootIt many times for other things, but it never crossed my mind for a project like this... :-D

[dlb]

 

Correct

Well it is USB2 capable. It recognises my externals but of course it is not 100% guaranteed. You do have to enable USB2 support once prog has booted. If it does not then I suppose you could always take out the hd from the enclosure and connect to the correct mobo controller ie PATA or SATA.

Failing that you could also try to see whether a Linux Live CD may help. Puppy Linux is very user friendly and will allow use of GParted and the repair facility.

Good Luck

 

:celebrate :hyper :dancer

Well, it took me awhile to get around to it, but I did use BootIt Next Generation, and it didn't see the USB external drive right away... I did find a little check box in the "Settings" menu to enable USB2.0 support, and WHAMMO!!! There was my drive! I highlighted it, clicked "Undelete", and SHAZAM!!! There it was. All my data in it's data-ful glory!!!

Thanks for the suggestion! It worked perfectly!!!!

:-D

[dlb]

 

Late reply but pleased it worked.

Good Luck