Problems with repartitioning a HP Pavilion Laptop

[Liam Proven]

On 18 August 2012 00:34, Bill Stanley <bstanle at wowway.com> wrote:
> On 08/17/2012 06:54 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>
>
> That sounds good to me.  One small point.  Since I boot to a  USB flash
> drive, do I have to specify the haard drive (/dev/sda) and not the USB flash
> drive?  If so, how should the command be modified?

It depends on your system, I think - some machines will call the boot
drive /dev/sda so if you're booting off USB it might be sda and the
hard disk sdb. However, in my experience, this is rare, and using
GParted you'll be able to see which disk is which readily.

>
> Bill Stanley
>
>
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