Excerpts from netnews.comp.os.linux: 22-Jul-93 Re: DOS FDISK trashed my
pa.. Stephen Tweedie@dcs.ed.a (1303)

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> On 21 Jul 93 14:42:37 GMT, adam@csi.on.ca (Adam Trevor) said:

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> > I just ran FDISK from DOS 5.0 to check my partition table.  I asked
> > it to display my current table and it displayed nothing.  I was a
> > bit perplexed so I exited FDISK and rebooted to load up Linux.
> > Linux would not come up.  The reboot came back with a boot sector
> > error.

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> > I rebooted with the Linux A1.3 floppy and it said that the partition
> > table was bad.

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> > Before I do anything else can someone guide me so I can save my
> > Linux partition.I have spent days with this thing and to lose it
> > would, well...

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> If you can remember which cylinders you allocated to Linux, then you
> should be able to safely reconstruct that partition table entry using
> Linux fdisk.  Then, as long as the partition data itself hasn't been
> corrupted, the Linux setup should be quite intact.

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> First you will have to repair the partition table, though - try using
> the DOS command "FDISK /MBR" from a DOS boot floppy.  Then boot the
> Linux boot floppy and recreate the Linux partitions.  I've done this a
> couple of times before when DOS has mis-behaved, with no ill effects
> to the Linux filesystems.


Alright, along these lines...does anyone know how linux or dos fdislk
can possibly screw up a harddrive?  This is what happened:

I have a 210 meg HD on a Gateway 2000 (486/33) and the lilo install was
having problems.  I decided to check the partition table because lilo
was giving some error about the cylindes being too high...

Fdisk (linux) said that there were all manner of erors/problems with my
partition table.  So I decided that in the interest of getting things
done right I would just reinstall the SLS distribution...WRONG!

I went to DOS, did teh DOS fdisk thing (removed partitions) then when I
tried to repartition the drive it told me that I had only 41 Megs of
available disk space...I thought perhaps the Linux partition table was
still there and not letting DOS see all the disk space...nope after
removing what was left of the linux partition table (nothing BTW) I
tried again...only 41 megs available...anyone see this before?  Anyone
know how to fix the problem?
--Chris

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