From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Dec 12 16:50:36 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D09DA37B401 for ; Thu, 12 Dec 2002 16:50:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from hermes.pressenter.com (hermes.pressenter.com [209.224.20.19]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 22D6943ED8 for ; Thu, 12 Dec 2002 16:50:25 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from nospam@hiltonbsd.com) Received: from [209.224.32.197] (helo=daggar.sbgnet.net) by hermes.pressenter.com with smtp (Exim 3.16 #1) id 18Me1s-00052L-00 for freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG; Thu, 12 Dec 2002 18:50:13 -0600 Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 18:50:12 -0600 From: Stephen Hilton To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: HD data recovery Message-Id: <20021212185012.1da5d0ef.nospam@hiltonbsd.com> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.8.6 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-portbld-freebsd4.7) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG When multi-boot system operators go bad :-) Using my PC's bios I could select either IDE or SCSI as the boot device, so I could boot either FreeBSD/W2K with the FreeBSD bootmanager on the 1st SCSI drive, run the bios setup on reboot, and start Linux on the 1st IDE HD. Had a problem with grub and RedHat 8's up2date on the 1st IDE disk messing with my 1st SCSI HD's boot record. It was trying to "automatically" update the Linux kernel and reconfigure grub, and lost its way. Booted to FreeBSD 4-STABLE via fixit floppy and did this :-\ (pre coffee) # cd /boot # dd bs=512 count=1 if=/dev/da0 of=mybootsect # dd bs=512 count=1 if=mbr of=/dev/da0 # shutdown -r now I seem to recall seeing something about my SCSI controller changing the mapping of the drive layout (Tekram DC390U2W) but cannot find that info now. The drive is now unbootable, changed the drive id jumper to 1, installed a fresh FreeBSD system on a different SCSI disk at id 0 and then ran: # fdisk da1 this reported a clean disk, no partitions. The munged HD is an 18 SCSI with 1st slice NTFS 4GB, 2nd slice FreeBSD 9GB, 3rd slice NTFS 5GB. Most of the important data was backed up, but lost a bunch of email and some other stuff, not to mention the time spent configuring and patching the W2K side of the disk. Modem only in my neighborhood, no broadband. Any hope for recovery of this drive? I know the missing piece of information is "out there" in the 512 byte mybootsect file I created. Is it possible to use "forensic" tools to track that down and then copy it and write it back to the correct location? Am up and running now on the spare HD, and can work on my "big mistake" at my lesiure, thanks in advance. Regards, Stephen Hilton nospam@hiltonbsd.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message