So you think it just wiped the MBR ?
You can try TestDisk. You could run it from a Linux LiveCD. Or
from Windows. You could try running it from a Windows 8 "cmd.exe"
command prompt window for example. (Just resize the command window
to meet the minimum x * y dimensions the program needs.) Like
most things in this posting, it'll likely need to "Run as
Administrator"
in order to be able to access the disk.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step
TestDisk is included on some of the Linux LiveCDs, so you don't
even need to download it.
The problem with TestDisk, is deciding whether the computed MBR, is
better than the situation you were in previously. If you have a
backup,
then I suppose you have nothing to lose.
TestDisk can scan the disk from end to end. It can find "deleted"
partitions,
as well as real ones. For example, at one time I had four partitions,
removed
one and then had three. One day, while fooling around with a Win2K
installer
CD, the MBR got wiped. I used TestDisk, and it proposed a four volume
partition table (which is wrong). I kept the information it detected
about
three of the partitions, and used that info to set up the partition
table
again.
If, at any time, the TestDisk interface results make you
uncomfortable,
press <control>-c to stop execution, which works in Linux or Windows.
For comparison and forensic purposes, you can use the Linux "fdisk" to
look at the MBR and its four primary partition entries. You can try
this
before running TestDisk.
sudo fdisk /dev/sda
I'm guessing the disk is called "sda". You can use this, to list
devices
detected.
sudo ls /dev
Things like hda, hda1 or sda, sda1 etc. are disks. HDA by itself, is
the
whole disk. When there is a number after it, that is for an individual
partition. For example, I have four primary partitions on my disk
right
now, and in Linux it would be /dev/sda for the whole disk (suitable
for the
fdisk command), and sda1, sda2, sda3, sda4 for the individual
partitions.
When in fdisk, and pointed at /dev/sda, you press "p" to print the
current table. it's very similar in a way, to what you see in
ptedit32,
only presented slightly differently. In terms of units of measure, the
Windows tools use 512 byte sectors, while Linux uses 1024 byte blocks.
Seeing a "+" after a number in Linux, means "and half a block more".
http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/5544/disks.gif
*******
As for Windows 8, I've installed it on two machines.
Machine #1 - Windows 7 laptop
- Install VirtualBox
- Install Windows 8 in a virtual machine
Worked well right away. Graphics even seemed snappy.
Machine #2 - Ubuntu 10.10 desktop (separate drive with only Ubuntu on
it)
- Install VirtualBox for Linux
- Install Windows 8 in a virtual machine
Crashed like a bastard, over and over again. Black
screen
on most error cases. Eventually, dialing back the
emulated
interfaces when setting up the VM, stopped that.
Graphics in
this case, seemed to be slower, even though the
computer has
4x the compute power, and a better graphics card. It
seems the
weak DX 11 graphics in the laptop made a difference for
some
reason.
So for hygiene reasons, I insulated Windows 8, and still got it
running.
It's not as much fun as running on raw hardware, but a bit safer.
There
is no desktop integration for example, so getting files in and out is
tougher.
Paul
