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How to write new partition data

Posted: 27 Feb 2012, 08:32
by wwrafter
Used testdisk to see/confirm missing partition data. I'm pretty sure placing the drive into a new enclosure whacked the partition, gonna call the vendor on that tomorrow.
The "write" command indicates that it is not supported, and I need to use pdisk.
The wiki says pdisk is not supported for intel macs.

Can you tell me whether I can use pdisk, and if not, what tool can I use to (recover/rewrite/restore...) my partition?

Thanks,

Nick

Re: How to write new partition data

Posted: 27 Feb 2012, 08:42
by wwrafter
Just a bit more data...
Drive (1TB) is currently in a Mac Pro booted in target disk mode.
testdisk is being run from a MacBook Pro attached to the Mac Pro via FW800.
Drive I'm currently trying to recover is the boot drive of the Mac Pro.
There are 3 other drives that have been damaged:
- 3TB iTunes library Drive
- 2-2TB drives used for TM backup (concatenated, if I remember correctly)

Re: How to write new partition data

Posted: 27 Feb 2012, 09:00
by Fiona
I'm not an Apple-Expert.
Actually, you shouldn't need any tool like pdisk?
On Intel MAC, write should be available.
Might be possible that TestDisk recognizes Apple partition map instead of EFI GPT.
In TestDisk when you select your harddrive and confirm with enter, you get to the partition table types.
Please check, what's marked there.
If Apple partition map is marked, just change it to EFI GPT.
Repeat your steps to analyze your partitions.

Fiona

Re: How to write new partition data

Posted: 27 Feb 2012, 19:07
by wwrafter
Changing the type to EFI GPT resolved the issues for the OS and media drives, thanks for the info.
Now I need to figure out what the partitions should look like for a two-drive concatenated set Time Machine backup looks like. Fortunately, I have a couple of spare drives I can use to create an empty backup and then use testdisk to look :-)

Re: How to write new partition data

Posted: 27 Feb 2012, 21:03
by deanfarnaby
I'm not expert on any of this stuff but some HDD manufactures use encryption so you can't remove the disk from the case.

Thought it was worth nothing, although I know little of what you guys are on about (Mac? lol)

Re: How to write new partition data

Posted: 28 Feb 2012, 07:48
by cgrenier
deanfarnaby wrote:I'm not expert on any of this stuff but some HDD manufactures use encryption so you can't remove the disk from the case.
Yes, there are external HDD case where the HDD have an USB connector and not SATA interface. If you replace the PCB (the electronic card), data are unreadable because the card also contains an encryption key.