[CentOS] Curious fdisk report on large disk

Wed Apr 27 10:12:43 UTC 2011
Timothy Murphy <gayleard at eircom.net>

Robert Nichols wrote:

>>>>> Could it be that the partition table has become corrupt (e.g.
>>>>> overwritten)?

>> What is strange is that I don't recall any episode
>> that might have corrupted the partition table.
>> I run smartd on this machine;
>> and according to "sudo smartctl -a /dev/sdb"
>> everything seems fine with this drive, no errors reported.
>> (I'm a bit wary of running "smartctl -t" as I'm not in the same country
>> as the machine at the moment.)
> 
> It might be instructive to see what is actually in that sector.  Try:
> 
>      dd if=/dev/sdb count=1 | od -tx1z

Thanks, I give the output below.

I guess I must have run "mkdosfs /dev/sdb" at some point
rather than "mkdosfs /dev/sdb1",
as I usually try to install Windows on the first partition.

This would have been about a year ago;
It's surprising it's been running fine ever since.
I hope there isn't a power outage in the next week,
before I get home ...

Is there a safe way of recovering the partition table?
I have a vague idea that copies are kept at various places on the disk?

------------------------------------
0000000 eb 58 90 6d 6b 64 6f 73 66 73 00 00 02 04 01 00  >.X.mkdosfs......<
0000020 02 00 02 00 60 f8 18 00 20 00 40 00 00 00 00 00  >....`... . at .....<
0000040 00 00 00 00 00 00 29 9d 29 d6 4b 20 20 20 20 20  >......).).K     <
0000060 20 20 20 20 20 20 46 41 54 31 36 20 20 20 0e 1f  >      FAT16   ..<
0000100 be 5b 7c ac 22 c0 74 0b 56 b4 0e bb 07 00 cd 10  >.[|.".t.V.......<
0000120 5e eb f0 32 e4 cd 16 cd 19 eb fa fc 31 c0 8e d0  >^..2........1...<
0000140 bc b4 7b 8e c0 b9 08 00 89 e7 f3 a5 8e d8 bb 78  >..{............x<
0000160 00 0f b4 37 0f a0 56 88 16 a5 4b 20 d2 78 15 b1  >...7..V...K .x..<
0000200 06 89 3f 89 47 02 64 f3 a5 8a 0e 18 7c 88 4d f8  >..?.G.d.....|.M.<
0000220 cd 13 eb 27 f6 45 f0 7f 75 08 66 8b 45 f8 66 a3  >...'.E..u.f.E.f.<
0000240 1c 7c b4 08 cd 13 72 13 20 e4 75 0f c1 ea 08 42  >.|....r. .u....B<
0000260 89 16 1a 7c 83 e1 3f 89 0e 18 7c fb bb aa 55 b4  >...|..?...|...U.<
0000300 41 8a 16 a5 4b cd 13 72 10 81 fb 55 aa 75 0a f6  >A...K..r...U.u..<
0000320 c1 01 74 05 c6 06 ff 7c 00 66 a1 f8 7d bb 00 7e  >..t....|.f..}..~<
0000340 e8 10 00 66 81 3e 24 7e e8 51 a3 7d 0f 85 c3 00  >...f.>$~.Q.}....<
0000360 e9 3d 02 bd 01 00 66 03 06 1c 7c 66 31 d2 eb 4f  >.=....f...|f1..O<
0000400 55 e8 d5 00 66 0f b7 fd b9 10 00 66 52 66 50 06  >U...f......fRfP.<
0000420 53 57 6a 10 89 e6 66 60 8a 16 a5 4b 1e 16 1f b4  >SWj...f`...K....<
0000440 42 cd 13 1f 66 61 8d 64 10 72 10 5d 66 01 f8 29  >B...fa.d.r.]f..)<
0000460 fd c1 e7 09 01 fb 21 ed 75 c6 c3 66 60 31 c0 8a  >......!.u..f`1..<
0000500 16 a5 4b cd 13 66 61 e2 c2 c6 06 ff 7c 4f 5d 66  >..K..fa.....|O]f<
0000520 52 66 50 55 53 66 0f b7 36 18 7c 66 0f b7 3e 1a  >RfPUSf..6.|f..>.<
0000540 7c 66 f7 f6 31 c9 87 ca 66 f7 f7 e8 6b 00 29 ce  >|f..1...f...k.).<
0000560 39 f5 76 02 89 f5 c0 e4 06 41 08 e1 88 c5 88 d6  >9.v......A......<
0000600 8a 16 a5 4b 95 b4 02 bd 10 00 66 60 cd 13 66 61  >...K......f`..fa<
0000620 72 17 66 0f b6 c8 c1 e0 09 5b 01 c3 5d 66 58 66  >r.f......[..]fXf<
0000640 5a 66 01 c8 29 cd 75 a7 c3 4d 75 de 95 d1 2e fc  >Zf..).u..Mu.....<
0000660 7d 75 df 31 f6 8e d6 bc b0 7b 8e de 66 8f 06 78  >}u.1.....{..f..x<
0000700 00 be e4 7d ac 20 c0 74 09 b4 0e bb 07 00 cd 10  >...}. .t........<
0000720 eb f2 98 cd 16 cd 19 eb fe 3b 2e fc 7d 76 04 8b  >.........;..}v..<
0000740 2e fc 7d c3 42 6f 6f 74 20 65 72 72 6f 72 0d 0a  >..}.Boot error..<
0000760 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 55 00 00 00 7f 00 55 aa  >........U.....U.<
0001000
------------------------------------