Partition Recovery Course

At the moment, partition recovery course consists of six lessons. This course covers the different partitioning schemes, namely MBR, GPT, LDM, and Linux md. In a short time, we are planning to add LVM partitioning schemes from Linux. Each lesson comes with hands-on tasks where you are offered to solve problems of different levels – from determining irregularities in MBR to editing GPT to get the partitions accessible. For each lesson, we developed a set of multiple choice tests to help you estimate how much you have learned about some or other partition recovery aspect.

Lessons are arranged in order of increasing difficulty and fairly often a lesson refers to the material of the previous lesson. So we recommend you study the lessons in the order in which they are going.

In all lessons where data recovery software is needed for explanation or practice tasks, we use our ReclaiMe Pro. You can get a free trial version of ReclaiMe Pro on www.ReclaiMe-Pro.com. The trial version is enough to complete the tasks.

Also, you may find helpful to have at hand a textbook Logical Data Recovery, which formed the basis of this course.

Lesson 1 - Introduction to partition

From this lesson, you learn about partitioning in general, the difference between complex and simple partitioning schemes, what partition metadata includes. Also, we show simple and complex partitioning layout diagrams.

Lesson 2 - Master Boot Record (MBR)

From this lesson, you learn about the MBR partitioning scheme: MBR metadata, what is C/H/S format, how offsets are measured, and the difference between primary and extended partitions.

Lesson 3 - GUID Partition Table (GPT)

This lesson covers the GPT partitioning scheme: what is GPT and how it is organized. Also, we discuss GPT main components - header and entries – with respect to partition recovery.

Lesson 4 - LDM basics

From this lesson, you learn about the LDM partitioning scheme: LDM metadata including PRIVHEAD and LDM database, main objects LDM operates with – disk, partition, component, and volume. Additionally, we show two different schemes of on-disk LDM layout - for the MBR and GPT disks.

Lesson 5 - LDM recovery

From this lesson, you learn how to recover LDM manually by linking various LDM objects LDM (disk, partition, component, and volume). Practical part of the lesson helps you move from theory to practice.

Lesson 6 - md-RAID recovery

This lesson covers md-RAID recovery: md-RAID basics, md-RAID metadata (superblock), and md-RAID recovery approaches. Additionally, a typical md-RAID failure scenario is discussed in detail.