[Pc_Support] RE: laptop hard drive failure -- partition table recovery ...

[Bryan J. Smith]

Umm, guys, "parted" under Linux _can_ scan the disk block by block
looking for partition barriers.  Linux itself also does _not_ rely on
the partition table being accurate, only the beginning of the
partition to find the filesystem.  And there are countless other
utilities as well.

I personally use _perfect_ (base 10, after M) numbers for my
partitions.  E.g., using Linux fdisk, +2000M, +4000M, +8000M, +16000M,
+32000M, +64000M, +128000M, etc...  I really try to stick with a
"double" from +2000M.  I've recovered countless partition tables this
way and _all_ of my systems have these sizes.

I really like to use a base, then x4 for binary, then x4 for data.

Back when 27-60GB was common ... (as well as notebooks)
  2000M:  /, /tmp, /var and swap
    - Dual boot:   2000M FAT16 C:
  8000M:  Then I'd use a +8000M for /usr, /usr/local, etc...
  32000M:  Data or specialized server partitions
    - Dual boot:   32000M FAT32 D:

Now that 200-320GB is common ... (as well as 120-160GB notebooks)
  8000M:  /, /tmp, /var and swap
  32000M:  /usr, /usr/local and the newer /srv (LFS 2.3), etc...
    - Dual boot:  32000M NTFS C: and FAT32 D: (sometimes UDF)
      (under 32768MB for maximum XP comaptiblity)
  128000M:  Data or specialized server partitions

And in the future, when 750-1,000+GB is common ...
  32000M:  /, /tmp and /var
    - Dual boot:  32000M NTFS C: and FAT32 D: (sometimes UDF)
  128000M:  /usr, /usr/local, /srv, etc...
  512000M:  Data or specialized server partitions