Hi friends, I have a real BIG problem :( Today, I experimented with the Grub menu on my bootable Grub floppy - I used the hide/unhide command for the Windows OS. For example : title Windows XP2 at hda1 unhide (hd0,0) hide (hd0,2) hide (hd1,2) rootnoverify (hd0,0) chainloader +1 makeactive boot Now all my logical drives disappeared !!. Partition Magic show a chunk of drive 1 as Type 1F. I thought of formatting that chunk back to Fat32 but was scare stiff - because I backup only some files but not the complete stuff. Was the MBR parition table corrupted? Can it be salvaged. Yes I did not backup the MBR. Any advice will be much appreciated. Thanks STAN

There is one more thing I want to add. I am now using Acronis PartitionExpert - Change partition type feature. Anyone know anything about this feature. That chunk of disk space missing is 70G extended dos partition which contains many fat32 logical partitions. Thanks

Are you able to use a bootable CD/floppy like knoppix or tom's root boot so that you can mount the partition with grub.conf on and alter it back? http://www.knoppix.net/ http://www.toms.net/rb/

Good news :) After some agonising hours of working at it. I was able to change the partition type of my dos extended partition from type 1F to type 05 using Partition Magic's ptedit32.exe. I just goto EPBR (the extended partition boot record)and changed the Type to 05. I am very pleased that I dont have to spend days correcting this problem. Thanks 3Dave for your response. Yes I can boot to all my OSs -xp2,98se,mepis except dsl which happen to be in one of the logical drive. STAN

FYI I don't think DOS fdisk can but GNU/Linux (c)fdisk can change partition types too. For an even more advanced (and free!) partition tool have a look at parted and its GUI frontend qtparted....pretty much comes as standard with most GNU/Linux distros (including live CDs) and can resize partitions etc. Glad to hear you got that partition back, now where did you put those backup tapes....maybe now is the time to use them?!? FYI A list of partition types and numbers: ========================================== # 00 - Freespace # 01 - FAT12 (< 16 MiB) # 02 - XENIX root file system # 03 - XENIX /usr file system (obsolete) # 04 - FAT16 (< 32 MiB) # 05 - Extended (chain) # 06 - FAT16B (> 32 MiB) # 07 - Installable (HPFS or NTFS); QNX; Advanced Unix # 08 - AIX; SplitDrive; OS/2 (through Version 1.3); Dell spanning multiple drives (array); Commodore DOS # 09 - AIX; Coherent; QNX # 0A - IBM Boot Manager; Coherent swap; OPUS # 0B - FAT32 # 0C - FAT32X (INT13X) # 0E - FAT16X (INT13X) # 0F - Extended X (> 7.8 MiB) # 11 - Hidden FAT12 # 12 - Compaq diagnostics # 14 - Hidden FAT16; AST DOS with logical sectored FAT # 16 - Hidden FAT16B # 17 - Hidden Installable (HPFS or NTFS) # 18 - AST Windows swap file # 19 - Willowtech Photon coS # 1B - Hidden FAT32 # 1C - Hidden FAT32X # 1E - Hidden FAT16X # 20 - Willowsoft Overture File System (OFS1) # 21 - officially listed as reserved (HP Volume Expansion, SpeedStor variant) # 21 - Oxygen FSo2 # 22 - Oxygen Extended # 23 - officially listed as reserved (HP Volume Expansion, SpeedStor variant?) # 24 - NEC MS-DOS 3.x # 26 - officially listed as reserved (HP Volume Expansion, SpeedStor variant?) # 31 - officially listed as reserved (HP Volume Expansion, SpeedStor variant?) # 33 - officially listed as reserved (HP Volume Expansion, SpeedStor variant?) # 34 - officially listed as reserved (HP Volume Expansion, SpeedStor variant?) # 36 - officially listed as reserved (HP Volume Expansion, SpeedStor variant?) # 38 - Theos # 3C - PowerQuest recoverable # 3D - Hidden NetWare # 40 - VENIX 80286 # 41 - Personal RISC Boot; PowerPC boot; PTS-DOS 6.70 & BootWizard: Alternative Linux, Minix, & DR-DOS # 42 - Secure File System; Windows 2000 (NT 5): Dynamic extended; PTS-DOS 6.70 & BootWizard: Alternative Linux swap & DR-DOS # 43 - Alternative Linux native file system (ext2fs); PTS-DOS 6.70 & BootWizard: DR-DOS # 45 - Priam # 45 - EUMEL/Elan # 46 - EUMEL/Elan # 47 - EUMEL/Elan # 48 - EUMEL/Elan # 4A - ALFS/THIN lightweight filesystem for DOS # 4D - QNX # 4E - QNX # 4F - QNX; Oberon boot/data # 50 - Ontrack Disk Manager, read-only, FAT (Logical sector size varies) # 51 - Ontrack Disk Manager, read/write, FAT (Logical sector size varies) # 51 - Novell # 52 - CP/M # 52 - Microport System V/386 # 53 - Ontrack Disk Manager # 54 - Ontrack Disk Manager 6.0 # 55 - EZ-Drive 3.05 # 56 - Golden Bow VFeature # 5C - Priam EDISK # 61 - Storage Dimensions SpeedStor # 63 - GNU HURD # 63 - Mach, MtXinu BSD 4.2 on Mach; Unix Sys V/386, 386/ix # 64 - Novell Netware 286 # 65 - Novell Netware 3.11 & 4.1 # 66 - Novell Netware 386 # 67 - Novell Netware # 68 - Novell Netware # 69 - Novell Netware 5+; Novell Storage Services # 70 - DiskSecure Multi-Boot # 75 - IBM PC/IX # 80 - Minix v1.1 - 1.4a; Old MINIX (Linux) # 81 - Linux/Minix v1.4b+; Mitac Advanced Disk Manager # 82 - Linux swap; Prime; Solaris # 83 - Linux ext2 # 84 - OS/2 hiding type 04; APM hibernation, can be used by Win98 # 86 - NT FAT volume set # 87 - HPFS FT mirrored; NT IFS volume set # 93 - Hidden Linux ext2; Amoeba file system # 94 - Amoeba bad block table # 99 - Mylex EISA SCSI # 9F - BSDI # A0 - Phoenix NoteBios Power Management "Save to Disk"; IBM hibernation # A1 - HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant) # A3 - HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant) # A4 - HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant) # A5 - FreeBSD/386 # A6 - OpenBSD # A6 - HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant) # A7 - NextStep # A9 - NetBSD # AA - Olivetti DOS with FAT12 # B0 - part of Bootmanager BootStar by Star-Tools GmbH # B1 - HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant) # B3 - HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant) # B4 - HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant) # B6 - HP Volume Expansion (SpeedStor variant) # B7 - BSDI file system or secondarily swap # B8 - BSDI swap or secondarily file system # BB - PTS BootWizard # BE - Solaris boot # C0 - Novell DOS/OpenDOS/DR-OpenDOS/DR-DOS secured; CTOS # C1 - DR-DOS 6.0 LOGIN.EXE-secured 12-bit FAT # C2 - Reserved for DR-DOS 7+ # C3 - Reserved for DR-DOS 7+ # C4 - DR-DOS 6.0 LOGIN.EXE-secured 16-bit FAT # C6 - Disabled NT FAT volume set # C7 - Disabled NT IFS volume set; Syrinx/Cyrnix # C8 - Reserved for DR-DOS 7+ # C9 - Reserved for DR-DOS 7+ # CA - Reserved for DR-DOS 7+ # CB - Reserved for DR-DOS secured FAT32 # CC - Reserved for DR-DOS secured FAT32X (LBA) # CD - Reserved for DR-DOS 7+ # CE - Reserved for DR-DOS secured FAT16X (LBA) # CF - Reserved for DR-DOS secured extended (LBA) # D0 - Multiuser DOS secured (FAT12) # D1 - Old Multiuser DOS secured FAT12 # D4 - Old Multiuser DOS secured FAT16 (<= 32M) # D5 - Old Multiuser DOS secured extended # D6 - Old Multiuser DOS secured FAT16 (BIGDOS > 32 Mb) # D8 - CP/M 86 # DB - CP/M, Concurrent CP/M, Concurrent DOS; CTOS (Convergent Technologies OS) # DE - Dell # DF BootIt EMBRM # E1 - SpeedStor 12-bit FAT extended # E1 - DOS access (Linux) # E2 - DOS read-only (Florian Painke's XFDISK 1.0.4) # E3 - SpeedStor (Norton, Linux says DOS R/O) # E4 - SpeedStor 16-bit FAT extended # E5 - Tandy DOS with logical sectored FAT # E6 - Storage Dimensions SpeedStor # EB - BeOS # ED - Reserved for Matthias Paul's Spryt*x # F1 - SpeedStor Dimensions # F2 - DOS 3.3+ second # F2 - Unisys DOS with logical sectored FAT # F3 - Storage Dimensions SpeedStor # F4 - SpeedStor Storage Dimensions # F5 - Prologue # F6 - Storage Dimensions SpeedStor # FD - Reserved for FreeDOS # FE - PS/2 IML (Initial Microcode Load); LANstep; Storage Dimensions SpeedStor # FF - Xenix bad-block table

in The futrue you can use gpart to fix the error excellent tool for guessing drive partitions (since technically the data is usually still there just marked as writable it can be found on many rescue cdroms for linux