[SOLVED] Grub partition table invalid or corrupt

[skintythe1andonly]

Hi

I was dual-booting but currently my laptops hard drive seems to be totally messed up and cant boot into either windows XP or ubuntu.

I was using kubuntu with kde4.1 but decided to change back to ubuntu as there were too many niggly things i didnt like about kde4.1. I had my home directory on a separate partition and thought that installing ubuntu wouldnt be really a problem and i could then just mount the same partition and i would still have all my files. I put in the 8.04 live CD and went into the installer. I said to format the kubuntu partition and use the other partition as home with my files in but i didnt format it. Maybe I shouldnt have done that? The installation failed. I cannot remember why now as I got distracted by my gf nagging and just cancelled the install. I thought I had just set up the install wrong and it hadnt started and i would come back to it later.

When I went to boot my laptop i get that it is starting Grub 1.5 and then "error 5". I looked this up in the manual and it says
"partition table invalid or corrupt. This is not good". Nothing happens after this message.

I have essential files backed up on the pc im using now but there are still some i would like (photos and stuff) on that ext3 partition. I can get at the windows files using a live CD and get all of them. The linux partition doesnt seem to appear then when i use that though. If i go to use the installer again. The whole hard drive appears as freespace. The windows partition doesnt even show up. Any ideas?

[Herman]

TestDisk - CG Security (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk)

TestDisk is the best software for fixing a corrupted partition table.
You can temporarily install TestDisk in your Ubuntu Live CD and it will remain as long as you have the CD booted. Otherwise, TestDisk is in Ubuntu Rescue Remix (http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/), System Rescue CD (http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page), GParted LiveCD (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php), knoppix (http://www.knoppix.net/)and many others.

Be sure to take the time to read the documentation in the TestDisk site, TestDisk - CG Security (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk), it is very well explained.
Here is an additional page you can look at to see what running TestDisk might be like, TestDisk Page (http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/p21.html)

I have had a corrupted partition table twice, once from trying out too may different kinds of partitioning programs, and another time from using a CD/DVD drive with a dirty optical lense.

TestDisk can scan your hard disk and find your partitions by searching for their first sectors and file system blocks, and it can write a brand new partition table for you based on the partitions you select.
It has saved a lot of people's data.

[skintythe1andonly]

Thanks....I managed to recover the data I was looking for. Im going to use this opportunity to give up the dual boot and totally switch. I may install Xp under vitual box this time.