[Wylug-help] Disaster recovery: I really need it

[Dave Fisher]

Hi All,

Seconds ago, I just made my second worst ever mistake on a computer.

I thought that I was giving a new msdos disklabel to an external USB
drive, while I was in fact giving that label to the principal IDE hard
drive on the machine concerned. (that'll teach me not use graphical
partition editors again).

I can take the loss if I have to (the machine is mainly used as a media
centre, rather than for serious work), but I'd like to save something if
I can.

I'm still logged into the machine, and I'm eternal optimist, so I'm
hoping that something might still be done.

Two fantasies occur to me:

  1. I might be able to dd disk contents to the afore-mentioned USB
  disk and restore them later.

  2. Someone might know of a method, by which I could
  recover/reconstruct the disk layout (partition table?)

I know that they are both long shots, but I figured that it is better to
look silly and find out now, rather than after a reboot when its too
late.

Dave