kuruu Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 Hi, well, as you can see in my profile I've been using osx on intel since July last year. It has been my primary workstation since 10.4.1 I have been using 10.4.5 for some time now. I went to install windows (on a seperate drive) but while my os x drive was still plugged in. Well, windows, being the friendly sort of system that is went ahead and overwrote my os x MBR. MOTHERf***A!!!! now, if I for example boot off another temporary 10.4.3 drive I have, there is no file system registered for that drive. argh!!!! does anyone have any ideas? Are there any recovery tools for intel yet? diskwarrior, etc? I've had luck with gpart on linux before, but it doesn't seem to be helping....... HFS not supported.... Someone, be my hero? Do HFS partition keep a backup of the MBR in any sectors? please help! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
wmarsh Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 does anyone have any ideas? Sounds like a bad problem. I haven't had exactly that one, but I recovered a Solaris Partition wiped by OS X this way: 1) Use Partition Magic from Windows to create UNFORMATTED partition on that drive exacly where your old partition was. 2) Boot DOS off the Partition Magic CD. Go to utilities folder, change the Partition type of this partition manually. In my case I used BF (Solaris); you would use AF (hpfsplus) 3) I was able to make my partition bootable again by reinstalling grub off Solaris installation DVD. Possibly you could make your partition bootable again using bless from 10.4.3, then booting single user mode. 4) If nothing else, you should be able to recover your files. Use either another OS X installation. Or you can mount from Linux. The command from a Linux live CD for 1st partition, 2nd disk is: mount -w -t hfsplus /dev/hdb1 /mnt Good Luck! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-82659 Share on other sites More sharing options...
dukaat Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 Hi Melchior, For hfsplus support in linux: google on 'hfsplus' and 'gentoo' First hit is bingoo! With these tools I could repair my hfsplus partition after a 'nice' hang situation during booting OSX86 after installing 10.4.1 on a IBM R52. Tom. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-82677 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuruu Posted March 25, 2006 Author Share Posted March 25, 2006 Thanks for the quick replies. The idea of creating a blank partition, then forcing it to an AF sounds good except, I had two partitions... One was 80GB, the other filled the remainder of the 300GB drive.... Seems a lot more risky, and I am wary of writing anything before knowing the results.... *sigh* I don't need to make it bootable again, if I could simply copy the data off I would be happy. Joyous and ecstatic even! I will attempt to mount manually in linux.... but because there are two partitions on the drive.... I'll let you know how I go. Any more ideas are welcome. If you think the process of manually recreating partition table would work, let me know.... Everything was there... 10 years of photos and documents.... I wise until recently having my storage drive seperate to my boot drive, but due to a changing of circumstances I moved everything to the 300gb. argh! and now I pay!!!! that'll teach me, but it also makes me want to crucify windows! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-82684 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuruu Posted March 25, 2006 Author Share Posted March 25, 2006 ok, so booted knoppix... windows has created an ntfs partition table.... the drive mounts as an ntfs partition of 128GB! with ntldr files ntdetect and System Volume! what should I do? I want to cry! [edit] It didn't format it though, because the partition table is all wacked out. It just filled the first sector with {censored}! =P Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-82699 Share on other sites More sharing options...
thrunner Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 Becareful with your recovery effort. Try to do no harm. Unless you specified the wrong drive during WinXP install, your HFS+ partition is still intact. It is probably just hidden by the installation. Try Acronis Disk Director for Windows (ver 9.0.554 for example) which can tell you the status of your partitions and unhide the partition. The HFS+ will show up as 0xaf partition with the name ShagOS (an OS which used the type 0xaf partition before Apple decided to use the same). Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-82708 Share on other sites More sharing options...
wmarsh Posted March 25, 2006 Share Posted March 25, 2006 If the partition is there, boot DOS from Partition Magic CD. Just use PTEDIT to read your partition table. Write down the values. Then you can manually try to change it without putting your data at further risk. If hfsplus partition is there, but not type AF, try changing it to AF, as I said above. If you have triple boot with Linux, try mounting from that. Your data should be recoverable. As encouragement, I wiped 3 years of kids photos when OS X installer killed an NTFS partition following the extended partition that contained Linux. I got my data back by restoring the partition table. The data was untouched. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-82763 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuruu Posted March 26, 2006 Author Share Posted March 26, 2006 Ok, here are screenshots from PTEDIT.... The first one is my 300GB drive with an 80GB partition and and the other is about 200GB.... As you can see, the 300GB drive is being reported as 119GB and everything is all over the place... I have included screenshots from the other two drive for comparison. The second drive is a 250GB drive with a single, non-bootable HFS partition. The third is an 80GB bootable HFS partition... I tried to change the type of partition to AF, but PTEDIT tells me that the starting head for the first partition must be less than 102... The partition table is just all crazy numbers! Looking at the other two drives, you can see what is a sane configuration... Stupid windows, who would design an operating system to overwrite the mbr of a drive other than the one being installed to??? I'm feeling very grim after looking at these partition tables... Oh, and linux tells me what HFSPLUS is the wrong filesystem type... Thanks for your help and hope guys... Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-83200 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuruu Posted March 26, 2006 Author Share Posted March 26, 2006 Well, I still haven't made any changes with PTEDIT. I was about to... I was going to try recreating the same map as before with blank space.... Then I noticed in Disk Utility, as shown in the screen shot below, There is an allocation of free space at 104.01GB and then there is what is recognized as an HFS+ partition of 175.45 GB (188,386,743,808 Bytes) As you can see it's untitled and not mountable. And I've tried every which way in linux to mount them too. I thought it was an 80GB partition and other partition maps seem to suggest the same thing. But it's so messed up, and I don't know for sure what it was before... I don't know where to start. I don't want to write anything just in case the table is recoverable... somehow. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-83275 Share on other sites More sharing options...
thrunner Posted March 26, 2006 Share Posted March 26, 2006 Couldn't you try to clone the HD in question or just the partitions if you don't have enough disk storage/spare drive to clone it to? Acronis True image and Ghost will backup and compress your HFS+ partition to an image. Just because it is not mountable in OSX doesn't mean it can't be imaged. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-83298 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuruu Posted March 26, 2006 Author Share Posted March 26, 2006 Couldn't you try to clone the HD in question or just the partitions if you don't have enough disk storage/spare drive to clone it to? Acronis True image and Ghost will backup and compress your HFS+ partition to an image. Just because it is not mountable in OSX doesn't mean it can't be imaged. thanks for the rely, yes, i can make a sector by sector backup (the only option due to the f***ed partition table having everything outside the disk boundaries and all!) but A ) I don't have another 300gb driver B ) What would I do with that image? How would I mount the separate filesystems contained within? I appreciate your help, thankyou Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-83488 Share on other sites More sharing options...
thrunner Posted March 26, 2006 Share Posted March 26, 2006 You don't need a 300GB drive because the imaging program will compress it. Unless your partition is filled with highly compressed data, you can get 40% or more of compression in your image. Most imaging programs can also split images into DVD size so that you can back up onto DVDR if needed; and at 20 cents per DVDR, there is no reason not to backup your data. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-83524 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuruu Posted March 27, 2006 Author Share Posted March 27, 2006 You don't need a 300GB drive because the imaging program will compress it. Unless your partition is filled with highly compressed data, you can get 40% or more of compression in your image. Most imaging programs can also split images into DVD size so that you can back up onto DVDR if needed; and at 20 cents per DVDR, there is no reason not to backup your data. ok. I've made a ghost image of the whole drive. Though to be honest I don't trust ghosts ability to replace the information correctly since the partition table is so off the mark and impossible... But i'm going to trust ghost... Now, i've done that... Can I mount that image? or is it just a backup? Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should include in my partition table using PTEDIT? Should I take a punt at blank 80GB and 199GB partitions? For an HFS partition map, is all the information contained in the first few sectors? or is for example the second partition header at the 80GB mark? I am determined to get this fixed. But I am relying on the knowledgebase of this forum. Please help! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-84092 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuruu Posted March 28, 2006 Author Share Posted March 28, 2006 ok. I've made a ghost image of the whole drive. Though to be honest I don't trust ghosts ability to replace the information correctly since the partition table is so off the mark and impossible... But i'm going to trust ghost... I spoke too soon, It had 25% left to go and I thought *sweet*! But alas, it was doing a sector by sector without any compression. 200gb was not enough.... *sigh* Please, help! Please! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-84338 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuruu Posted March 28, 2006 Author Share Posted March 28, 2006 well, i went ahead and tried to make changes to the partition table.... without a backup. no luck. I tried creating a blank partition then changing it to af as suggested. no dice. It shows up as /dev/sdc1 which is a start, but still give the error about not finding the filesystem or superblock.... please, someone help!!! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-84481 Share on other sites More sharing options...
wmarsh Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 This is the most encouraging screenshoot you posted. It looks like Your 1st Partition got wiped. I think you said the photos were in the second partition. I don't understand why PTEDIT says you have 3 partitions on that drive. This might be part of the problem. The numbers in the 3rd partition (which says it contains no sectors) and the 4th are the most screwy. I would try this: 1) Use PTEDIT to put 0 in all fields of partitions 3 and 4. These are screwed up anyway. 2) Try booting OS X 10.4.3 and see what disk utility says then. If it mounts, you are golden. If not, try one of these two: 3a) use OS X disk Disk utility to make a partition in the 1st part of your drive. Doesn't really matter what kind. This won't make the second partition visible. But if you then use PTEDIT to convert it to something OS X ignores (BF for Solaris comes to mind) then the 2nd partition might then mount. Particularly if you make it type AF. OR 3b) Put 0 in all the fields of the 1st partition with PTEDIT. The nice thing about PTEDIT is if you write down all the numbers 1st, you can restore what you did and no further harm comes to your data. GOOD LUCK! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-84777 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuruu Posted March 29, 2006 Author Share Posted March 29, 2006 ok, using Testdisk to search my disk, it found the large 200GB partition. Backed that up, safe and secure. Though, word to the wise don't go doing recovery options when drunk, when I got up this morning I was freaking out because there were multiple mount points so I thought i had overwritten a drive!!!! but turns out I hadn't. But that'll teach me for coming home from the pub and thinking I'll do work! the other partition, the 80GB one however... I can't get anything going.... With the known 200GB partition, I pretty much know exactly what size it is and where it should be. A screeny is below... But no matter what I do, when I try to mount it, i'm told there is no filesystem.... It's really great that there are responses. It gives me hope. This drive has stuff like my itunes library file and mail and more recent documents so while not as valuable to me as the other one, I feel so close now, got any ideas on what to put in ptedit... to the get the result below, I have created an unformatted partition where there was the 75GB of space. But no dice.... I'm really unsure what to put in terms of cyclinders and heads.... Thanks!!! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-85343 Share on other sites More sharing options...
wmarsh Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 to the get the result below, I have created an unformatted partition where there was the 75GB of space. But no dice.... I'm really unsure what to put in terms of cyclinders and heads.... Thanks!!! Why did you create 75 GB unformatted? I thought you said it was 80GB above? If you don't match the size and location of the two partitions EXACTLY what they were before, this method won't work. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-86094 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuruu Posted March 31, 2006 Author Share Posted March 31, 2006 Well, as I mentioned, I wasn't sure of the exact size of the partitions... Using testdisk, it found the 200GB partition. However, by process of elimination, the first partition, my boot partition was 74.5GB which, in hindsight is definately the correct amount. So it's not the size that is the problem. The problem is that I can't seem to recreate a workable filesystem, even though I know the exact size of the partition... Ideas? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-86270 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuruu Posted April 2, 2006 Author Share Posted April 2, 2006 Ok, well, I can't think of any other ways to attempt to recover this partition... It would be great if someone could explain how the filesystem works... Where it is stored etc, then I would know for sure if there is anything there.... I am pretty sure I am recreating the partitions as they should be, but no filesystem is appearing for that 74.5 GB partition. I am thinking of buying an external drive caddy so I can use mac data recovery software on the drive. because of course, no data recovery software works in rosetta. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/13021-windows-fubared-my-hfs-drive/#findComment-87329 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts