From: Adam Trevor (adam@csi.on.ca)
Date: 08/09/93


From: adam@csi.on.ca (Adam Trevor)
Subject: SUMMARY: Rescuing Linux Partition
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1993 21:04:00 GMT

Many thanks to Christopher Olaf!!

A few weeks ago I made a request for a method to save my linux partition that
had been trashed by a Stoned variant.

The virus only trashed the boot table but I was out of luck since I had not
recorded my partition table specs. A lesson learned! Anyway Chris gave me
an awesome fix and I hope this helps those of you who encounter similiar
difficulties.

As soon as you realize you have lost your linux partition you must make
sure you don't damage the data in your lost partition. ie no creating
new partitions etc.

I then booted up a floppy with Norton DiskEdit on it. I am sure there are
other just as powerful tools but this one made the package worth it. Under
the object menu select drives. Since you wanting to look at a lost drive make
sure you specify physical drives instead of logical. Physical will give you
a choice of hard disk 1, 2 etc. Select the drive that contains the afflicted
partition. Under the tools menu select find. Use 'lost+found' for the search
string (this is one of the standard directories in your root). Let the program
run and hopefully it should find the string.

DiskEdit will show where the string is on the hard drive giving sector number,
cluster and cylinder. I wrote this down, and then booted up my a1.3 disk for
Linux. With Linux up I ran fdisk and created a new partition with the cylinder given by DiskEdit as the beginning cylinder. I wasn't sure about the ending
cylinder so I guessed (final cylinder) wrote the table back and quit fdisk.
I then tried mounting the partition and voila it was all back. If you have
room you might want to copy your linux partion to a new one just in case
your ending cylinder was off.

I hope this helps. If I missed something or you have questions don't
hesitate to get in touch with me.

Adam

-- 
Adam Trevor                                   CAnet: adam@csi.on.ca
Carp Systems International                    Voice: (613) 592-5780
600 Terry Fox Drive, Suite 200                  Fax: (613) 592-0584
Kanata, Ontario, Canada     K2L 4B6