Recovery boot sector of logical partition

I have a HD of 60 gb splitted in two FAT32 partitions (HD1 primary
28.7Gb and HD2 logical 29.7Gb ). The HD is used as slave, and it is not
the bootable HD in my PC.

Disaster striked when, in a "normal" starting up, without apparent
reasons, the drive HD2 in Computer resources appeared as RAW, asking if
touched to be formatted. (It was almost full of data).

I checked with an utility and it appears that the very first sector
(S1) of the drive HD2 logical partition gives error (C.3697, H1 S1).
When with an editor I checked this sector I have the following message
"An Error occured while reading from absolute sector 59392368" (i.e
corrisponding to C 3697, H1, S1). Is there something that I can do to
regain HD2? Can I remove the sector above and tell the system to check
from the next sector? Is there some utility that can be helpful
(Partition Table Doctor was unable to fix the boot sector). Thanks for
your time

wrote in message oups.com...
I have a HD of 60 gb split in two FAT32 partitions (HD1 primary
28.7Gb and HD2 logical 29.7Gb ). The HD is used as slave, and it is not
the bootable HD in my PC.

Disaster stroke when, in a "normal" starting up, without apparent
reasons, the drive HD2 in Computer resources appeared as RAW,
asking if touched to be formatted. (It was almost full of data).

I checked with an utility and it appears that the very first sector
(S1) of the drive HD2 logical partition gives error (C.3697, H1 S1).

Actually, that is the partition bootsector, not the first sector and not
the first data sector either.

When with an editor I checked this sector I have the following message
"An Error occurred while reading from absolute sector 59392368" (ie
corresponding to C 3697, H1, S1).

Is there something that I can do to regain HD2?

Probably.

Can I remove the sector above

No.

and tell the system to check from the next sector?

What's the point. It's the partition bootsector. You can't just do without
(though in theory you should and some older OS indeed do, but not the later ones).

FAT32 has a backup bootsector usually 6 sectors behind the original.
You need a Hex sector editor that can copy the backup sector contents
and is capable and dump it to the original destination without reading
the contents from that original destination first.

Is there some utility that can be helpful (Partition Table Doctor was
unable to fix the boot sector).

Yes, no positives for that one yet.

Thanks for your time

wrote in message
oups.com...
I have a HD of 60 gb splitted in two FAT32 partitions (HD1 primary
28.7Gb and HD2 logical 29.7Gb ). The HD is used as slave, and it is not
the bootable HD in my PC.

Disaster striked when, in a "normal" starting up, without apparent
reasons, the drive HD2 in Computer resources appeared as RAW, asking if
touched to be formatted. (It was almost full of data).

I checked with an utility and it appears that the very first sector
(S1) of the drive HD2 logical partition gives error (C.3697, H1 S1).
When with an editor I checked this sector I have the following message
"An Error occured while reading from absolute sector 59392368" (i.e
corrisponding to C 3697, H1, S1). Is there something that I can do to
regain HD2? Can I remove the sector above and tell the system to check
from the next sector? Is there some utility that can be helpful
(Partition Table Doctor was unable to fix the boot sector). Thanks for
your time


You can probably, like F.R. suggested use a diske editor and copy the backup
boot sector to the corrupt sector. If you feel uncomfortable using a disk
editor I can help:

Get DiskPatch from www.diydatarecovery.nl with DiskPatch create a support
log post the log in the forum on our website (again
www.diydatarecovery.nl).

Joep

Many thanks for your answers.
To F.R.: Thanks, yes, indeed is the partition bootsector. (sorry, I am
a new DIY, not an expert). A point that seems important is that when I
tested the surface of the HD, this first partition bootsector gives me
"Verify sector error at:59392368". It seems therefore that the HD is
not able to read that sector, not just that it is corrupted. Am I
correct?

To Joep: Many thanks for your support. I will certainly try to post the
log. But giving the "surface test" do you really think that it is
possible to edit that sector?

Sorry just an update:
As F.R. suggested 6 sectors after S1 (i.e. S7) there is "something" and
S2 and S8 are the same (by the way this is not true for S3&S4 and
S9&10). I saved S7 with Partition Table Doctor 3 (that is what I have,
probably Joep's Utility is better but I have only the trial). I was
tempted to Restore the saved sector S7 in S1. I had several warnings by
PTD that this may destroy all data. So I stopped and I am asking now to
you. Shall I go on?

wrote in message
oups.com...
Sorry just an update:
As F.R. suggested 6 sectors after S1 (i.e. S7) there is "something" and
S2 and S8 are the same (by the way this is not true for S3&S4 and
S9&10). I saved S7 with Partition Table Doctor 3 (that is what I have,
probably Joep's Utility is better

Yes.

but I have only the trial). I was
tempted to Restore the saved sector S7 in S1. I had several warnings by
PTD that this may destroy all data. So I stopped and I am asking now to
you. Shall I go on?

Yes. It will not destroy all data. You can not detroy all data when writing
to just this one sector.

--
Joep

Maybe you need ask

wrote in message oups.com...
Sorry just an update:
As F.R. suggested 6 sectors after S1 (i.e. S7) there is "something" and
S2 and S8 are the same (by the way this is not true for S3&S4 and
S9&10). I saved S7 with Partition Table Doctor 3 (that is what I have,
probably Joep's Utility is better but I have only the trial). I was
tempted to Restore the saved sector S7 in S1.

I had several warnings by PTD that this may destroy all data.

That's nonsense.
That only applies to a working good partition with a corrupted backup boot-
sector. And recovery will still be possible by smarter utilities than PTD.

So I stopped and I am asking now to you.
Shall I go on?

Yes, on the presumption that PTD won't **** up on that simple action.

wrote in message ups.com...
Many thanks for your answers.
To F.R.: Thanks, yes, indeed is the partition bootsector. (sorry, I am
a new DIY, not an expert).

Your subject line was actually correct.

A point that seems important is that when I
tested the surface of the HD, this first partition bootsector gives me
"Verify sector error at:59392368".

It seems therefore that the HD is not able to read that sector, not
just that it is corrupted.

Am I correct?

Both is correct. The drive can't read it because the calculated ECC and
the recorded ECC differ, meaning the sector cannot be reliably read,
meaning contents is not reliable, i.e. corrupt. Also known as a bad sector.

If this state persists it can only be corrected by overwriting the sector.
In this case by using the contents of the back-up bootsector.


To Joep: Many thanks for your support. I will certainly try to post the
log. But giving the "surface test" do you really think that it is possible to
edit that sector?

Not if it stays persistently bad.

wrote in message ups.com...
Maybe you need ask

Or in other words, you don't trust yourself to answer it here in public, PTD spam bot.