No parttions in alternate CD

[apparle]

Also will editing the partitions affect the Windows isntallation in any way??

[meierfra.]

/dev/sda3 and two entries for /dev/sda4

The "/dev/sda4" is actually ignored by "sfdisk". It's just there to make the file easier to read for humans. So it does not matter that the file says "/dev/sda4" instead of "/dev/sda3". (But I'll will edit the file anyway, to avoid confusion)
Did you edit the file? I suggest to use my original file. sfdisk is very picky about lines breaks. For example an extra blank line will corrupt the file.

but I've CLI parted installed. Will it be enough?

yes. Just type "sudo parted /dev/sda print" to check on the partition table.

Will I have to modify fstab entries..........and anyother things like that

Fstab should be using UUID. So no need to edit fstab.
But you need to edit menu.lst. (see below)

grub> find /boot/grub/stage2
(hd0,5)

After you wrote the partition table, you need to reinstall grub:

sudo grub
find /boot/grub/stage2  
root (hd0,4)
setup (hd0)
quit

The "find /boot/grub/stage2" is just a precaution. It should return "(hd0,4)"

Open menu.lst via

gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Change
# groot=(hd0,?)

to

#groot=(hd0,4)

Save and close the file. Go back to the terminal and type

sudo update-grub

Also will editing the partitions affect the Windows isntallation in any way??

As far as I can see, it should not effect the Windows installation.

[apparle]

Did you edit the file? I suggest to use my original file. sfdisk is very picky about lines breaks.

I was about to edit but whole HDD was at stake so I just thought I would confirm.
I will try and then post all the details

[apparle]

This the output of the long sfdisk command

ap@PARLE:~$ sudo sfdisk -f --no-reread  -O ~/Desktop/OldPT.save /dev/sda < ~/Desktop/PT.txt
[sudo] password for ap:                                                                    

Disk /dev/sda: 9729 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
Old situation:                                            
Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *      0+   1911    1912-  15358108+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2       1912    9727    7816   62782020    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
                start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,254,63) found (1023,0,1)
/dev/sda3       3824+   5735    1912-  15358108+   b  W95 FAT32       
                start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,254,63) found (1023,1,1)
/dev/sda4          0       -       0          0    0  Empty           
/dev/sda5       1912+   3492    1581-  12699319+  83  Linux           
                start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,254,63) found (1023,2,1)
/dev/sda6       3493+   3613     121-    971901   83  Linux           
                start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,254,63) found (1023,1,1)
/dev/sda7       3614+   3823     210-   1686793+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
                start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,254,63) found (1023,1,1)    
/dev/sda8       5736+   7647    1912-  15358108+   7  HPFS/NTFS           
                start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,254,63) found (1023,1,1)    
/dev/sda9       7648+   9727    2080-  16707568+   b  W95 FAT32           
                start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,254,63) found (1023,1,1)    
New situation:                                                            
Units = sectors of 512 bytes, counting from 0                             

   Device Boot    Start       End   #sectors  Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        63  30716279   30716217   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2      30716280 156280319  125564040   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda3             0         -          0   0  Empty          
/dev/sda4             0         -          0   0  Empty          
/dev/sda5      30716406  56115044   25398639  83  Linux          
/dev/sda6      56115108  58058909    1943802  83  Linux          
/dev/sda7      58058973  61432559    3373587  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8      61432623  92148839   30716217   b  W95 FAT32           
/dev/sda9      92148903 122865119   30716217   7  HPFS/NTFS           
/dev/sda10    122865183 156280319   33415137   b  W95 FAT32           
Successfully wrote the new partition table                            

Re-reading the partition table ...
BLKRRPART: Device or resource busy
The command to re-read the partition table failed
Reboot your system now, before using mkfs

If you created or changed a DOS partition, /dev/foo7, say, then use dd(1)
to zero the first 512 bytes:  dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/foo7 bs=512 count=1
(See fdisk(8).)

Now as you told this is the output of the command 'sudo parted /dev/sda print'

ap@PARLE:~$ sudo parted /dev/sda print
Model: ATA WDC WD800JB-00JJ (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 80.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number  Start   End     Size    Type      File system  Flags
 1      32.3kB  15.7GB  15.7GB  primary   ntfs         boot
 2      15.7GB  80.0GB  64.3GB  extended               lba
 5      15.7GB  28.7GB  13.0GB  logical   ext3
 6      28.7GB  29.7GB  995MB   logical
 7      29.7GB  31.5GB  1727MB  logical   linux-swap
 8      31.5GB  47.2GB  15.7GB  logical   fat32
 9      47.2GB  62.9GB  15.7GB  logical   ntfs
10      62.9GB  80.0GB  17.1GB  logical   fat32

ap@PARLE:~$

It seems to me that everything is ok just the "The command to re-read the partition table failed" so I thought I should ask?

next I run

sudo grub
find /boot/grub/stage2  
root (hd0,4)
setup (hd0)
quit

when I open the /boot/grub/menu.lst file
instead of
# groot=(hd0,?)
I found
# groot=3116095c-a5d2-4c73-8eb4-cd4cd8e8f2de

which matches the UUID of my ubuntu drive. So I didn't change anything

Next I run
sudo update-grub

ap@PARLE:~$ sudo update-grub
Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
Searching for default file ... found: /boot/grub/default
Testing for an existing GRUB menu.lst file ... found: /boot/grub/menu.lst
Searching for splash image ... none found, skipping ...
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-11-generic
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-9-generic
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-7-generic
Found kernel: /boot/memtest86+.bin
Updating /boot/grub/menu.lst ... done

ap@PARLE:~$

To me, it seems all is well but you please check and tell

[meierfra.]

"The command to re-read the partition table failed"

That's normal. Everything looks good. Just reboot and you should be all set.