1 Topic by notorious.dds (edited by notorious.dds 2014-09-23 11:29:49)

  • notorious.dds
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Topic: [solved]"unrecognized disk label" - typical resolutions not successful

I have a 320 GB HD that was originally formatted using a Windows Vista x64 installation disk utilizing an MSDOS partition table.  It was formatted into 2 partitions per the default Vista installation.  Following the installation of Vista, the disk appeared normally when viewed with Gparted (Live CD or via Parted Magic). 

All was normal until I decided to clone the Windows 8.1 partition (/dev/sda5) from my Microsoft surface over the Vista parition (/dev/sda2) on the HD mentioned above.  The /dev/sda5 partition was roughly 100 GB and came from a disk that had a GPT partition table.  It was cloned to a 300 GB partition (/dev/sda2) on the 320 GB drive mentioned above with the MSDOS partition table.  This HD only has 2 partitions.

After cloning, I boot the windows 8.1 install disk and ran the following commands on the 320GB drive:

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /scanos
bootrec /rebuildbcd

At this point, the computer will boot the OS without issue and all seems well and good.  That is, until I try to access either partition from linux OS.  I can't mount either parition in linux and when I view the drive in Gparted, I get the "unrecognized disk label" error.  The drive essentially appears as though it has no partition table within Gparted. 

Following

sudo fdisk -l -u /dev/sda

It does not appear that there is any overlap of the two partitions.

Following

sudo parted /dev/sdb unit s print

There is no error about a partition being outside of the disk.

Following

sudo fixparts /dev/sda

There's nothing about lingering GPT data

At any rate, I'm not sure where to go from here.  I've tried Gparted 0.19.1 Live as well as earlier versions with no success.

Any ideas are appreciated.  Thanks!

2 Reply by mfleetwo

  • mfleetwo
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Re: [solved]"unrecognized disk label" - typical resolutions not successful

Hi,

GParted uses libparted to query the hard drive and show the partitions, so what "parted /dev/MYDISK unit s print" shows is what GParted should show.

Please show the output of the fdisk and parted commands.  (Was that a typo saying "parted /dev/sdb" instead of sda?)  Also the output from "blkid" and if available "lsblk".

How did you clone Windows 8.1 partition to the 320 GB HD?

Thanks,
Mike

3 Reply by notorious.dds (edited by notorious.dds 2014-09-21 15:45:28)

  • notorious.dds
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Re: [solved]"unrecognized disk label" - typical resolutions not successful

Thanks Mike,

Here's the output:

Welcome - Parted Magic (Linux 3.5.6-pmagic)

root@PartedMagic:~# fdisk -l -u /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0b8fdec7

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   ?        2048      718847      358400    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          718848   625139711   312210432    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT






root@PartedMagic:~# parted /dev/sda unit s print
Error: /dev/sda: unrecognised disk label
Model: ATA Hitachi HTS54323 (scsi)                                        
Disk /dev/sda: 625142448s
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: unknown
Disk Flags: 




root@PartedMagic:~# fixparts /dev/sda
FixParts 0.8.5

Loading MBR data from /dev/sda

MBR command (? for help): p

** NOTE: Partition numbers do NOT indicate final primary/logical status,
** unlike in most MBR partitioning tools!

** Extended partitions are not displayed, but will be generated as required.

Disk size is 625142448 sectors (298.1 GiB)
MBR disk identifier: 0x0B8FDEC7
MBR partitions:

                                                   Can Be   Can Be
Number  Boot  Start Sector   End Sector   Status   Logical  Primary   Code
   1      *           2048       718847   primary     Y        Y      0x07
   2                718848    625139711   primary              Y      0x07






root@PartedMagic:~# blkid
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="Parted Magic" UUID="2671-BF4E" TYPE="vfat" 
/dev/sdb2: LABEL="Data" UUID="d9ab5edb-07ab-4418-bb25-8b1df42b6efc" TYPE="ext2" 
/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs" 
/dev/loop1: TYPE="squashfs" 





root@PartedMagic:~# lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 298.1G  0 disk 
└─sda2   8:2    0   7.3G  0 part 
sdb      8:16   1   3.8G  0 disk 
├─sdb1   8:17   1   656M  0 part 
└─sdb2   8:18   1   3.1G  0 part 
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom  
loop0    7:0    0  39.3M  1 loop 
loop1    7:1    0 184.1M  1 loop

Yes, the sdb was a typo.  And, I think I used that typo when originally running my parted command.   It's corrected in the commands above.

I cloned the windows partition using clonezilla.  I used sda5 as the source and cloned it to an image.  I then changed all of the sda5's to sda2's in the image and cloned the image to sda2 on the 320GB disk.

4 Reply by mfleetwo

  • mfleetwo
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Re: [solved]"unrecognized disk label" - typical resolutions not successful

Hi,

The partition table on your 320 GB HD appears to have been partitially corrupted.

Assuming the partition table printed by fdisk is correct ...

Re-write the partition table using fdisk:
1) Write down the details of the 2 partitions: start, end sectors and partition type and boot flag.
2) Run "fdisk /dev/sda".
2a) Delete both partitions.
2b) Recreate two new partitions with the exact same start and end sectors, restore partition type, boot flag and write the partition table back to the disk.

It is a possiblilty that the MBR boot code is corrupted too.  You may need to follow this FAQ: 15: What are the commands for repairing Windows Vista or Windows 7 boot problems?

Thanks,
Mike

5 Reply by notorious.dds (edited by notorious.dds 2014-09-23 15:43:22)

  • notorious.dds
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Re: [solved]"unrecognized disk label" - typical resolutions not successful

Thanks again Mike!

Deleting and recreating the partitions with fdisk did it.  However, upon booting into Windows, I noticed that the disk usage was constantly hovering around 100% and some programs were not opening properly even with a reboot.  I decided to run chkdsk (with the /f /r options). 

For whatever reason, the chkdsk stopped at 12% complete and stayed there for hours.  I decided to let it go and went to bed.  When I woke up, I was pleasantly surprised to find that all was well. smile

Thanks.

As a side note to anyone reading this in the same situation, I would normally use Clonezilla to back up a drive before playing with the partition table in this way.  However, given it's issue as described above, Clonezilla was a no go as well.  In lieu of using Clonezilla, I was able to successfully create a disk image using Macrium Reflect.