Partition disaster

woah · Fri 23 Apr, 2010 20.20

I was resizing the partition of a friend's laptop, and it ran out of battery mid-way. (I know, stupid me.)

I've tried using an XP disc (with the SATA drivers) and it can't see the hard drive or any partitions. Ubuntu throws up a bunch of errors when using the Live CD and when trying to install, and Paragon's recovery disc won't boot. Neither will my Samsung Vista Recovery CD (the laptop is Sony, does this make a difference?)

I'm out of ideas, can anyone help?

Sput · Fri 23 Apr, 2010 20.36

Assuming you've exhausted the partitioning options on the XP disk, does the BIOS contain a low-level format option? Needless to say you will lose all data ever but it might do the trick (if take a very long time).

Beep · Fri 23 Apr, 2010 20.46

Tried Hiren's Master Reboot CD?
http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd
That has a few tools that may work on it.

woah · Fri 23 Apr, 2010 20.52

Sput wrote:Assuming you've exhausted the partitioning options on the XP disk, does the BIOS contain a low-level format option? Needless to say you will lose all data ever but it might do the trick (if take a very long time).

I don't have the laptop back until tomorrow evening, so I can't check right now, but from looking at the internet, Sony laptops don't include this. I'd like to avoid this option if I can anyway, I'd like to keep the Sony Recovery Partition just in case. Usually F10 starts the recovery partition but nothing happens when I try currently.

Beep wrote:Tried Hiren's Master Reboot CD?
http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd
That has a few tools that may work on it.

I did try this, but it didn't boot even when forced to. I'll try re-burning it tomorrow.

Gavin Scott · Fri 23 Apr, 2010 21.07

woah wrote:I don't have the laptop back until tomorrow evening, so I can't check right now, but from looking at the internet, Sony laptops don't include this. I'd like to avoid this option if I can anyway, I'd like to keep the Sony Recovery Partition just in case. Usually F10 starts the recovery partition but nothing happens when I try currently.

Sony's support site might give you an image or download of the recovery partition, in which case you could use one of the above mentioned tools and start fresh.

I *think* I came across a link for one when I was restoring a Vaio and had wiped the hard drive before realising there was another partition.

woah · Fri 23 Apr, 2010 21.22

Gavin Scott wrote:
woah wrote:I don't have the laptop back until tomorrow evening, so I can't check right now, but from looking at the internet, Sony laptops don't include this. I'd like to avoid this option if I can anyway, I'd like to keep the Sony Recovery Partition just in case. Usually F10 starts the recovery partition but nothing happens when I try currently.
Sony's support site might give you an image or download of the recovery partition, in which case you could use one of the above mentioned tools and start fresh.

I *think* I came across a link for one when I was restoring a Vaio and had wiped the hard drive before realising there was another partition.

Can't see anything on the site, only drivers for Vista and 7, and the manual. Thankyou anyway