"Invalid partition table" help needed

summer123

Sorry to borrow Cobra territory to ask for help.

My DELL Inspiron notebook is almost dead. When computer is turned on, "Invalid partition table" pops up. How to fix it without losing files saved on local drives. Many thanks.

tonight and tomorrow, there are another 18-24 inches of snow to add on top of last weekend's 26.5 inches. Thinking to get a free day home to watch market. dead DELL inspiron ...

ByStander

Hook the hd to another laptop to see if you can read the disk? As the first step, you may want to try to boot from CD drive using things such as KNOPPIX (http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-info/index-en.html) to see if you can copy the files you need on the disk

CoolMax

I used to hand fix the partition table by using INT13.
Here are some tools out there. but I need do some search first.

summer123

bobcat

Try to boot up by a disk to get DOS prompt
At the DOS command prompt, type in: fdisk
Now, you will be prompted with the following question

Do you wish to enlarge large disk support (Y/N) ?

Enter: Y
Now to check for active partition, enter: 2

Look under the Status column. The active partition is usually assigned to the drive which contains your operating system.

If there's no active partition set, enter the number of the partition to make active

Restart your computer and the problem should be resolved.

CoolMax

Try TestDisk

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download