partition recovery

[Malcolm Kay]

On Sun, 13 Jul 2003 10:25, Marcin Gryszkalis wrote:
> Hi
>
> I have a problem with UFS partition
> (I can't access it). I'll tell you the story:
>
> there was windows 2000
> [                  ntfs                     ]
> I made some place for FreeBSD

How?
In FreeBSD terminalogy this is now 2 slices:-

> [         ntfs          ][  ufs=ad0s2       ]
> I created slices

In FreeBSD terminology "created partitions" or
more specifically "BSD partitions".

> [         ntfs          ][( s2a )( s2b )... ]
> after some time I removed win2000 - and just
> did newfs on first partition (no repartitioning,
> no slices - only newfs)

On the first "slice" -- no "BSD partitioning".

> [        ufs=ad0s1      ][( s2a )( s2b )... ]

The MBR (master boot record) table will still have
the first slice marked as ntfs unless you ran fdisk to
change it.

> after some time I wanted to install debian GNU/Linux
> (this is test-box)
> [    ufs=ad0s1=hda1     ][swap=hda2][ext2=hda3]
> and here something bad happened during installation
> (few reboots/kernel panics and so on)

It seems you have now assigned all "slices" to Linux
at least in your mind. But what types does fdisk think they are?

>
> Now I cannot mount ad01s/hda1 partition -
>   - linux sees it as NTFS partition, more -

Probably because it is still marked as ntfs in the MBR.
Change its type with fdisk.

> it CAN mount it as NTFS (and I can even see
> some windows files!)
>   - freebsd can see it as UFS but cannot mount

Where is FreeBSD? -- it appeared you had given the FreeBSD slice
ad0s2 over to Linux swap -- but then I'm not knowledgable with 
respect to exactly what Linux means by hda2.

> ('bad magic number' or bad superblock),
> using backup superblock
> (-b 32) doesn't work.
>
> What can I do to recover data from the first partition???

What data? -- the original ntfs data or what Linux may have installed?
I suspect that in either case it is now pretty much corrupted. The semblance 
of windows files will have a scattering of blocks over written by newfs.

>
> regards

You seem to be confused with slices and partitions -- but it IS
confusing. Just remember Microsoft partitions are slices in the BSD
world.

Malcolm