I was trying to reformat an external hard drive and I fucked my computer. According to a tutorial i got on google, I clicked "delete volume" on the external drive in the "device management" screen.
After finding my external, the name of which had changed, I found I couldn't select format, so I assumed it just needed to restart.
Only now I realize I fucked my Actual drive somehow, as my computer won't boot. All I see Is a black screen that says "invalid partition table" or something like that
Howfucked am I? Can I fix this, hopefully by myself and for free?
First step, unplug the external and, if available, get into the BIOS/UEFI right at boot and change the boot sequence to only use your internal drive (and optical drive/card readers, if listed). Then try booting. If that doesn't work, keep reading.
Are you using a Mac or a Windows machine?
If you're using Windows and you have a Windows DVD, stick it in and boot into recovery. Give automated repair a try (up to 3 times if it doesn't say it detected errors but could not automatically fix them; if it says that, move on after one try).
If still no luck, run [B]diskpart[/B] and type [B]list[/B] to see if your other drives and partitions are still intact. If they are and the only thing fucked up was the external, good. Run [B]bootrec /fixmbr[/B] and [B]bootrec /fixboot[/B], then reboot and cross your fingers.
If diskpart does not show what you want, use it to recreate the disk volume and partition(s) using the [I]create[/I] command in diskpart. This is a bit more complicated and the utility can wipe disks clean of data with one command, so read the help for diskpart before proceeding, and don't be afraid to Google for your specific scenario (or come back to this thread with more detail--I can't predict what you'll see so I'm not getting into specific steps).
If you're using a Mac, I'm not a Mac expert and especially not at boot-level emergency recovery, so someone else'll have to step in.
[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;46875380]First step, unplug the external and, if available, get into the BIOS/UEFI right at boot and change the boot sequence to only use your internal drive (and optical drive/card readers, if listed). Then try booting. If that doesn't work, keep reading.
Are you using a Mac or a Windows machine?
If you're using Windows and you have a Windows DVD, stick it in and boot into recovery. Give automated repair a try (up to 3 times if it doesn't say it detected errors but could not automatically fix them; if it says that, move on after one try).
If still no luck, run [B]diskpart[/B] and type [B]list[/B] to see if your other drives and partitions are still intact. If they are and the only thing fucked up was the external, good. Run [B]bootrec /fixmbr[/B] and [B]bootrec /fixboot[/B], then reboot and cross your fingers.
If diskpart does not show what you want, use it to recreate the disk volume and partition(s) using the [I]create[/I] command in diskpart. This is a bit more complicated and the utility can wipe disks clean of data with one command, so read the help for diskpart before proceeding, and don't be afraid to Google for your specific scenario (or come back to this thread with more detail--I can't predict what you'll see so I'm not getting into specific steps).
If you're using a Mac, I'm not a Mac expert and especially not at boot-level emergency recovery, so someone else'll have to step in.[/QUOTE]
Thanks this looks great, I'll try it first thing in the morning. In the meantime, is there a step by step morons guide for this part?
[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;46875380]get into the BIOS/UEFI right at boot and change the boot sequence to only use your internal drive (and optical drive/card readers, if listed). [/QUOTE]
I won't be able to give you steps for morons unless I know exactly what your system has. If it's BIOS, it's one of a few mostly-similar-to-each-other ways. If it's UEFI, it's one of a few mostly-similar-to-each-other ways, but completely different from BIOS.
Do you see a message on computer bootup that's something like, "Press DEL to enter SETUP", or F2, or F12, or something? It might say BIOS or UEFI/EFI instead of SETUP, same thing. Hit whatever button it says to get into SETUP (you have to be quick), and then look for boot order or boot options, and you'll see a list with your hard drive, any optical drive(s) attached, any other bootable drives, and options for floppy/USB/network/etc.
[IMG]http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/ASUS-EFI-01.jpg[/IMG]
For example, if this is what you got, we'd want the Boot Menu (F8) in the lower right, which will let you control your drive boot order. Or just drag the tiles around, in this particular case, like it says.
This is the kind of thing where you can have the system try and boot from a DVD first, before the hard drive, so that it reads the OS disk for a system reinstall, or you can have it boot from the HDD first so that it doesn't waste time checking if there's a bootable disc in your DVD drive (but then if you were to want a reinstall, you'd have to change boot order or else it'll never check the DVD drive first before booting into Windows off the drive).
When in doubt, Google for the BIOS/EFI you have.
Oh, and one minor clarification, because you very probably figured this out but this is in the context of diskpart so no taking the risk of fucking your machine by assuming you're smart enough to realize it. When I said this,
[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;46875380]If still no luck, run [B]diskpart[/B] and type [B]list[/B] to see if your other drives and partitions are still intact. If they are and the only thing fucked up was the external, good. Run [B]bootrec /fixmbr[/B] and [B]bootrec /fixboot[/B], then reboot and cross your fingers.[/QUOTE]
I forgot to mention that, if everything looks good in diskpart, [B]get out of diskpart and back to the recovery console[/B], and then run those bootrec commands.
Last we need is you wiping your internal drive by accident.
Alright so I'm at the boot device select screen, but none of these look at all familiar to me.
I see
UEFI boot sources
Legacy boot sources
----ATAPI cd/dvd drive
------SATA3
----hard drive
------SATA1
----network controller (Realtek pxe b03 d00)
Not sure this is useful infoat all, but any ideas?
[editline]7th January 2015[/editline]
uh lol i kinda gave up and chose "boot with defaults" and now the computer is back, even after a restart so many thanks
am i cool to plug my external back in and format it now? i'm trying to get it in FAT32 so i can use it on my ps3
Default boot settings might cause issues depending on what those are. I guess you could try plugging the external in, if it breaks things again you know you need to actually set the correct boot drive in the bios. Also just really hope your mobo's default setting isnt boot to disc or usb, youll get a fun surprise if you leave a disc or flash drive in.
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