Problems with repartitioning a HP Pavilion Laptop

[Liam Proven]

On 17 August 2012 23:38, Doug <dmcgarrett at optonline.net> wrote:

> Perhaps if you use a Linux disk and boot into the Live system, you will be
> able to see the files on the Windows partition. If that's the case, you
> could then copy your data to an external hard drive or a thumb drive,
> and then you could reinstall Windows.

This is true, but didn't the OP say he had a backup?

>  Altho it is reported to be possible
> to install Linux first, you will have much less trouble if you install
> Windows first!

Strongly agree!

> The partitioning problems you saw were probably a
> symptom of HP putting some repair information on a partition that might have
> been hidden. Probably that's gone, now, or not recoverable, but with luck
> you don't need it.

Concur.

> Assuming you have saved your files,
> I would then wipe the disk altogether, using one of the various freebies
> that writes all zeroes or all ones,

He could indeed do that but it seems a bit overkill to me. Just
writing 1k of zeros to the boot sector would do it, and frankly, even
that is probably more than strictly necessary - just writing a new
empty partition table is probably enough.

[Thinks]

Although that might not get rid of the bit of GRUB in the MBR... blast.

OK, here is how to completely nuke the Master Boot Record:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda1 bs=512 count=1

Best to do logged in as root (via `sudo -s`) or simply:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda1 bs=512 count=1

BEWARE. THIS WILL ERASE EVERYTHING ON THE DISK & YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE
TO GET IT BACK.

Hint from here:
http://www.unixmen.com/how-to-erase-mbr-in-linux/

>  and then partition the disk with GParted
> or something similar and install Windows and then Linux. Then copy
> the Windows data files back and you're good to go.

That is probably what I'd do myself, yes, but the snag is that Win7
likes to create a hidden system-recovery partition & AFAIK you can't
do that manually.


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