partimage can't read from MBR

[VJ]

Hello,

I use partimage (on a live cd) to make images of my system drives. Recently, I reinstalled my computer, and now I wanted to make those images. I'm still using an old Knoppix CD (3.4 if I'm not mistaken).
The system has several physical drives and partitions, but the ones that matter are:
C: (primary partition on boot drive)
D: (primary and only partition on second harddisk)
E: (second primary partition on boot drive)

When I started partimage, I get the message that it cannot read from my MBR, and it aborts. I decided to boot up with my XP cd, start the recovery console and run fixboot and fixmbr from that. When doing so, I get the message that my MBR has a non-default layout (even though the drive was paritioned using Windows) and that I run the risk to loose access to the partitions if I continue. Of course, I continued ().
I can still access the partitions (both in windows and linux), but it doesn't solve the problem partimage has.

Any thoughts on how I could make partimage work on my system?
(would a more recent version help?)

Thanks!

Jörg

[The PIT]

Sounds like a damaged sector on your hard drive.

I suggest chkdsk or spinright.

[VJ]

The problem occurs on both the C: and D: paritions, which reside on different physical drives (does it matter that they are scsi drives?). I ran chkdsk on both of them, and it yielded no bad sectors (it would suprise me: the C-partition is on a Seagate Cheetah 10K.6, which remaps bad sectors internally).

I had the same with my previous installation, but running fixboot and fixmbr from the rescue console did the trick. Now it isn't the case. I'm wondering if I can run fixboot and fixmbr equivalents from my live CD...? I'll first try a more recent live CD.

If it matters: the drives were partitioned when Windows was installed. Only the first partition (C) was created then. The others (D on the other disk, E on the same disk) were created from within Windows. All the partitions are "primary partitions".


Jörg

[VJ]

The problem is solved by using the most recent version of partimage.
Our system administrator thinks that the addition of the raid controller (which is the only difference to before) might cause some modules to be loaded and this causes issues in partimage.


Jörg