How to Manage Hard Disk Partitions in Linux?

A logical disk/partition is a logical division on the hard disk. The partition table stores the info about various partitions on the disk. In Linux system, one partition is required as a root file system and the second partition as swap partition. In case of large disk sizes, often you can find a partition that stores the kernel image, data needed by BIOS at BIOS and some other auxiliary files. This partition is mounted on location /boot and carries the information required at boot time. 

About Fdisk: While Fdisk prints a partition table it matches the physical and logical start and end points. After verifying that those parameters are equal, the partition list is printed.

Fdisk is a text based utility to manage Linux partitions. It is also known as Partition table manipulator for Linux. Using the tool, you can perform various operations such as: viewing existing partitions, new partition creation, add a partition, partition deletion or modification. The utility let you create primary and logical partitions on the disk. The maximum allowed number of primary partitions is four; the number of logical partitions may vary according to disk size.

First create a disk partition, after that you can install your operating system. After you create a hard disk partition you should now use the format tool for formatting them. 

To make Linux partitions, you can use the Linux fdisk or Linux cfdisk program. Using the Fdisk utility, you can create four primary partitions. Open command prompt, run fdisk command. To make changes to the partition table, first you need to issue the write (w) command. The Fdisk option ‘w’ let you to write the new partition table and exit. If you want to quit without saving changes then use the fdisk command with q option.

For a hard disk larger than 512 megabytes (MB), you have two format options. You can choose either FAT16 or FAT32 file systems. Using the ‘File Allocation Table’ file system, data can be stored/accepted/retrieved in the hard disk. In case of FAT 16, the maximum allowed space for a drive letter is 2 GB. In case of FAT 32, the maximum size of drives can be up to 2 terabytes and minimum 512GB.

Below given are some options with the fdisk command:

1 View partition:

# fdisk -l: This command will let you view all partitions on all the hard disks connected to your system.

 The partition list will be displayed along with the device name.

If you want to view partitions on a specific device only then you can do by mentioning the device name along with fdisk -l command. 

e.g. # fdisk -l /dev/sda

Here /dev/sda is the harddisk name

The Fdisk option ‘p’ lets you print the partition table.

Run the Fdisk command:

# fdisk /dev/hdb

Command (m for help): p 

The above command will print the partition table.

2 Delete partition:

First delete all exiting partition using the command:

# fdisk -d

Now run the below command to create new partitions

# fdisk -n/dev/sda

Create a new partition: fdisk n 

3 fdisk –s: 

Let you view the size of partition

# fdisk -s /dev/sda7

-s partition let you print the partition size (in blocks) on the standard output. 

4 fdisk Expert Command f:

You can enable or disable the boot flag for a partition. 

While you delete partitions and create new ones. The partition order of the new partitions may get un ordered. You can ‘Fix the Partition Table Order’.

5 -b sectorsize: This option let you specify the sector size of the disk. 

6 -h: This option let you print help and then exit. 

7 -c: This option let you switch off DOS-compatible mode. 

8 -C cyls:  This option let you specify the number of cylinders of the disk. 

9 -H heads: This option let you specify the number of heads of the disk. (Not the physical number, of course, but the number used for partition tables.) Reasonable values are 255 and 16. 

10 -S sects:  This option let you specify the number of sectors per track of the disk. 

11 -u: This option let you view sizes in sectors instead of cylinders while listing partition table. 

12 –v: This option let you Print version number of fdisk program and exit.

Note: While using fdisk command, perform the actions carefully and prejudicially. Because once you format or delete a Linux partition using the command there is no direct way to get the data back. Whether its accidental or intentional deletion, if you want to get you lost Linux data back you will have to run some Linux recovery software that let you scan your drive for the lost partition data and save the recoverable items at your desired location.

How to Recover Data in Mac from External Hard Drive?

In today fast growing world, hard drive is the most important part of any OS, whether it is Mac, Windows or any other. Main reason for the importance of hard drive is their ability of storing huge amount of data within quick period of time.

Do you know a hard drive rotates at the speed of 4000 to 8000 revolutions per second for providing quick access of the data stored into it? But, at the same time there are certain disadvantages which might prove costly for a Mac user. One of the most common one is the data loss from the hard drive.
Main reasons for data loss:

• Mac shut down abruptly
• Corruption of hard drives
• Files emptied from trash
• Accidental drive erasing
• Unmounted Mac drive

But, today majority of the people prefer to use external hard drives as a supplementary data storage device for Mac OS. It is always beneficial for a Mac user to keep all their important data so that he/she can bring all the photo, video etc. from one place to another easily. Problem comes when you accidentally delete some data from your external hard drive. It might be possible that your data is lost from your external hard drive or it may become corrupted in the external hard drive?

When a Mac user faces such data loss problems, then he/she ask: Is there any Mac related software which can perform Mac external hard drive recovery? In such cases, Stellar Phoenix Mac data recovery software comes handy.

Stellar Phoenix Mac data recovery helps the Mac user in regaining the lost files, deleted and corrupted data from external hard drive. Below are the various system file formats which this software supports:

• HFS, HFS+ (Apple file system)
• FAT, ExFAT (Common format for any external hard drive)
• NTFS (Window based file system)

How to use Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery to Recover Lost Data from External Hard Drive:

1. The very first thing which you need to do is downloading and installs the software.
2. Now, connect your external hard drive to the Mac OS X.
3. When you double-click on the Stellar Phoenix Mac Data recover icon, a GUI will appear in front of you.
4. In step 4, click on the blue button to proceed further.
   
5. Here, you need to select the right option for external hard drive recovery for Mac OS. If your data is deleted from your hard drive, then select “Deleted Recovery” otherwise, select “Formatted Media”. 
   
6. After selecting the right recovery option, you need to select your hard drive for scanning. 
   
7. Once you complete the step 6, software scans the complete hard drive and gives a preview of your images, video, files etc. 
   
8. If you are a registered user of this software, then it can also provide you an option through which you can recover all your deleted files at any desired location.

Final conclusion: Once you perform all the above mentioned step, your lost data from the external hard drive will be regain within few minutes.

How to Recover Lost iPod Data after an iPod Reset or Restore?

IPod devices are widely used as a pocket computers and portable media players. You can use them as external data storage devices to carry files. Using the Apple's iTunes, you can transfer data to and from the iPod device using Apple Macintosh and Windows operating systems.

Using the iTunes restore option, you can erase all data structure on the iPod drive. If you have those deleted files in your iTunes then you can re-synchronize your device to iTunes and restore your files back.

But in case, you don’t have backup and wants to restore files that accidentally deleted even from the iTunes backup folder, then there is no direct way to restore back the deleted files. In such situation, you would require data recovery software for iPod.

Note:  If you have lost your iPod data, stop performing any action with it. As it may overwrite the deleted data and thus reduces the chances of recovery. Don’t even connect it with iTunes or any other app.

How to restore iPod to factory settings using iTunes?

You can restore your iPod to factory settings using the iTunes restore option. It let you erase all data (songs, videos, photos, calendar and contacts etc.) from the device and setup the device as new. If you want to restore some deleted data, you can so it by synchronizing g your device with ITunes data library.

If you want to restore your device using the iTunes Restore option keep in mind the following things.

You must have the latest version of iTunes on your device. Backup your device data using the iTunes backup or copy the device data to another device/computer.

Now follow the given steps to restore your device:

• Connect the iPod to the computer system
• From the list of available devices, select your iPod.
• Then click Restore from the Summary panel
• In the prompt windows, click restore to confirm. It will remove all data from you device and restore it to factory settings.
• After completion of the restore procedure, restart your device.
• After restart, the welcome screen will come up. From there you can setup the device as new or restore it from a previous backup. 

Suppose you have erased all your IPod data using the factory reset and you don’t have any backup. Then how would you get it back. In such case you have to recover the lost IPod data using Stellar Phoenix iPod Data Recovery software.

Features of iPod recovery software:

• Let you recover the lost data, documents, songs, video files, podcasts, e-books, and graphic files from your iPod on Windows system.
• It performs iPod recovery in cases of file loss due to accidental /intentional deletion, iPod formatting, virus attack etc. 
• Supports data recovery from iPod classic and iPod Shuffle on Windows based OS (Windows 7, Vista, XP, and 2000)
• Let you create image of the IPod so that you can perform recovery later, if required.
• The original format of the data is kept intact preserved after recovery.
• The software offers three options: 'Quick Recovery', 'Deleted File Recovery' and 'Advance Recovery'
• The data not available under the 'Quick Recovery' option could be scanned using the 'Advance Recovery' option.
• It let you preview the list of recoverable items.From the scan results, you can search the desired data item using the 'Find' option. The File Mask and File Filter options let you search better from the scan results.
• Using the tool, you can perform selective iPod recovery using the filters scan results according to file types and set criteria. The supported file types are MIDI, AIFF, M4A, OGG, RPS, M4P, AU, AVI, MOV, ASF, WMV, MP4, WMA, MP3, MPG, MPEG, GIF, WAV.
• From the scan results, you can select the desired items and save them at your desired location.
• Using the Create Image feature, you can create a .dat image of the iPod data and then perform recovery from the image.
• It let you save the scan results so that you can resume the recovery process at later times. 

How to perform recovery using Stellar Phoenix iPod Recovery – Windows

                               

• Download and install the software. Connect the IPod to your system.
• Open the software. Click on the "Recovery" icon then click on 'Play' button.
• Select your iPod from the dropdown list
• Click on 'Quick Recovery' then click 'Play'. You can also choose the 'Deleted File Recovery' and 'Advance Recovery' options according to needs. 

                                

 

                                  

                                

• This will begin the scan process.

From the scan result, select the folder that you want to recover and then click ‘Play’. Select the files to be recovered and save them at desired location.