Raid setup removed Linux partitions

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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brntn
Posts: 2
Joined: 28 Jul 2014, 07:43

Raid setup removed Linux partitions

#1 Post by brntn »

My older computer, Dell Dimension 3100, 2.8 GHz P4 w/HT, 1.0 GB ram, 2 TB Seagate hdd. My operating system, Puppy Linux (full-installed to hdd) would not recognize a second 2TB Seagate hdd. Not only that, but GParted reports the second hdd as No devices detected, even though the second drive is listed by GParted as a device to select for partitioning. BIOS also correctly identifies the second drive. So I tried to connect that extra drive to a PCI SATA controller card. In the documentation for the PCI card, no mention was made of Linux capatibility, just Windows support. With the data cable of the second drive connected to the PCI SATA controller card, I selected Spare Drive from the card's setup menu, but I still could not get Linux OS to see the hdd. I made the terrible mistake of setting up Raid0, twice, and possibly Raid1, once. In order to try another Raid setup, I had to delete the previous setup, so this mistake was made repeatedly, 3 or 4 times. The "SiI Raid 0 Set" combined two 1863GB hdd's into one Raid, sized 3726GB. After the first Raid0 setup, BIOS reported no boot device. I realized much too late that I had removed partitions from the first drive, the main drive. GParted reports the entire disk as Unallocated space. Three days ago (July 24) I happened to run "fdisk -l", so I have a fairly recent snapshot of the original partition setup.
# fdisk -l
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2614 20992000 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 2614 243074 1931497472 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 243074 243202 1024000 82 Linux swap

Does this sound like an easy thing to fix with TestDisk? What depth analysis will reveal original partitions?

brntn
Posts: 2
Joined: 28 Jul 2014, 07:43

Re: Raid setup removed Linux partitions

#2 Post by brntn »

I restored my partitions without a hitch using TestDisk. Thanks for a great recovery program.

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