[plug] Partitions on external hard disk gone awry

[Mike Holland]

Haydon,
do I understand correctly that you have not yet lost any data?
It sounds like you just need the 'fdisk' command-line utility to fix it.
You say that 'gparted' refuses to read the partition table, but the 
linux kernel is OK with it?

First, back up any important files if you haven't already.
Then save a copy of the partition table. Are you using extended 
partitions? (or just primary 1-4?)  Take a binary copy using dd for
the first few blocks of the disk. Use fdisk to report the partition
locations and start sectors in sector mode, not just cylinders.
Write it down.

    Then you might be able to use fdisk to just delete the pad 
partitions and create new ones. If thats no good, you may need to wipe 
the table and recreate it using the recorded data.

Mike