Partition Table Layout

  • Thread starter Thread starter nedjinski
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nedjinski

Can someone help me read the partition table as displayed in the MS Disk
Management window?

I have one drive with 5 partitions on it. recently because of a MBR and/or
boot sector virus I had to reinstall XP to the C: drive partition and after
doing so my Disk Management display looks like the following:

there are 5 compartments for the 5 partitions - the first and the last have
dull gray borders with a dark blue bar on top - partitions 2,3,4 have a light
green border with a bright blue bar on top.

what do the colors / borders mean?

all partitions say "healthy".

if I look at this disk in Partition Magic I see only one single partition
(yellow border) - not 5 - which says "bad".

the computer runs normally as far as I can tell - will I have problems in
the future if there is something wrong here? or can I get away with it being
this way?

when I reinstalled XP I intentionally didn't reformat the drive because of
data on the other partitions that I didn't want to lose.

can I repair the basic partition structure if necessary without having to
reformat the drive?
 
nedjinski said:
Can someone help me read the partition table as displayed in the MS Disk
Management window?

I have one drive with 5 partitions on it. recently because of a MBR and/or
boot sector virus I had to reinstall XP to the C: drive partition and after
doing so my Disk Management display looks like the following:

there are 5 compartments for the 5 partitions - the first and the last have
dull gray borders with a dark blue bar on top
Click to expand...

These are primary partitions.

- partitions 2,3,4 have a light
green border with a bright blue bar on top.
Click to expand...

These are logical drives inside an extended partition.

what do the colors / borders mean?
Click to expand...

Look at the very bottom of the Disk Management pane and the colors in
use are explained.

all partitions say "healthy".

if I look at this disk in Partition Magic I see only one single partition
(yellow border) - not 5 - which says "bad".

the computer runs normally as far as I can tell - will I have problems in
the future if there is something wrong here? or can I get away with it being
this way?
Click to expand...

No way that we can tell. If chkdsk runs ok and if the disk manager says
the disks are healthy and if all your data is intact then things would
appear to be fine, but we can't say for sure, we don't know any more
than you do, we don't know what was or wasn't done to the partitions.
With a virus in the picture you may never be 100% sure of the integrity
of the disks, if it were me I would zero out the *whole* disk with a
write protected utility known to be virus free, the boot disk for the
utility should be created on a clean computer and it should be write
protected so that the virus doesn't infect the disk when you boot the
computer with it.
when I reinstalled XP I intentionally didn't reformat the drive because of
data on the other partitions that I didn't want to lose.

can I repair the basic partition structure if necessary without having to
reformat the drive?
Click to expand...

To repair the partition structure you would probably have to remove all
the partitions and recreate them, we don't really know if this is
necessary or not. In any case, if you value your data you certainly
will have a backup on an independent media, that way if the disk fails
or if the partitions explode you will be prepared...

John
 
W/O the reformat,youre bound to have problems...Either way,go to run,
type:cmd In cmd type:DiskPart In DiskPart,type:list disk Then type:
list volume You'll see the info,type:HELP For all DiskPart cmds
 
can I use a program like TestDisk for example to check / repair / rebuild
damaged partitions, MBR, and boot sector problems without having to do a
total format? what's curious to me is that XP sees all the partitions and all
the data is accessible normally but Partition Magic only sees one partition
and thinks that it's "bad" or damaged somehow. another curious side note is
that as per above, partitions 2,3,4 are now logical partitions but were
originally primary partitions.

any experience using partition / MBR / boot sector repair programs?
 
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