Robert Nichols wrote: > Actually, if it were my drive I would just re-create the 4 primary > partitions using whatever tool was handy, but giving that extended > partition a "normal" type instead. Once I had the primary partitions > looking right, then I'd go in with a hex editor and change the type code > to "5" for that partition. Listing the partition table again with fdisk > should now show that everything is back. (It's very unlikely that any > of those secondary partition tables got overwritten when you > essentially turned the whole disk into one giant DOS file system.) Thanks. I think I'd better wait until I have acquired a large external drive, and backed up everything! But re your method, couldn't I just use fdisk to change the type of sdb4?