same mistake: sucessful installation but the partition table is empty

[marmango <marmango_(_at_)_softhome_(_dot_)_net>]

> ...
> 
> What happened is somehow you specified an offset of 0 for the start of
> the first partition.  Block 0 just so happens to be where the
> partition table is loaded (along with the MBR).  So, what happens to
> be where the MBR and partition table is supposed to be got overwritten
> by the PBR instead (which looks like an empty partition table,
> curiously.  Hmmm... I wonder what the new PBR looks like.  heh.  Guess
> I got some testing to do... 8)
> 
> This is workable, but in general, a bad idea for a few reasons (for
> one, if someone were to re-install the MBR code on your system -- a
> usually acceptable and safe proceedure -- your system will be in big
> trouble).  You *could* leave your system this way, but I would
> *really* recommend pulling any data and config off the thing and
> re-partitioning the system.
> 
> In general, you want to leave the first track unallocated.  In *your*
> case, your first OpenBSD partition should start at sector 63, not
> zero.  That comes from your drive's geometry, reported by fdisk:
> "geometry: 4865/255/63" (it will vary on different drives, BIOSs, and
> interfaces).
> 
> More info on what is going on, plus what those annoying TLAs I just
> threw around meant:
>   http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq14.html#Boot386
> 
> BTW: Good problem report, good details. 8)
> 
> Nick.

I' m in the same situation on an old notebook armada without CD drive
nor NIC...only a floppy :-(
And because I couldn't make the Cirrus Logic 7548 graphics card work
under xfree86 (in openbsd that is, haven't tried it on linux yet), I
decided to remove openbsd keeping the data in the other partitions
intact, because the only way to backup/restore is through the parallel
port connection This is the way I worked until now- I used linux to copy
the installation files in a folder in the ext2 fs. But now I cannot boot
linux because linux's fdisk sees only the opebsd's partitions (msdos' is
worse...sees an empty disk like openbsd's).
There should be a way to restore the MBR into the dos compatible 
format...I don't care loosing the disklabel...
My goal is to save the data on the fat32 and ext2 partitions.
Aggelos. :-\
PS: I attached output from openbsd's fdisk and disklabel and linux's fdisk
# /dev/rwd0c:
type: ESDI
disk: ESDI/IDE disk
label: ST91420AG       
flags:
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 63
tracks/cylinder: 16
sectors/cylinder: 1008
cylinders: 2794
total sectors: 2816352
rpm: 3600
interleave: 1
trackskew: 0
cylinderskew: 0
headswitch: 0		# microseconds
track-to-track seek: 0	# microseconds
drivedata: 0 

16 partitions:
#        size   offset    fstype   [fsize bsize   cpg]
  a:  1552320        0    4.2BSD     2048 16384   328 	# (Cyl.    0 - 1539)
  b:   165312  1552320      swap                      	# (Cyl. 1540 - 1703)
  c:  2816352        0    unused        0     0       	# (Cyl.    0 - 2793)
  i:   544257  1717695     MSDOS                      	# (Cyl. 1704*- 2243)
  j:   552321  2262015    ext2fs                      	# (Cyl. 2244*- 2791)
Disk: wd0	geometry: 698/64/63 [2814336 Sectors]
Offset: 0	Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending       LBA Info:
 #: id    C   H  S -    C   H  S [       start:      size   ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 0: 00    0   0  0 -    0   0  0 [           0:           0 ] unused      
 1: 00    0   0  0 -    0   0  0 [           0:           0 ] unused      
 2: 00    0   0  0 -    0   0  0 [           0:           0 ] unused      
 3: 00    0   0  0 -    0   0  0 [           0:           0 ] unused      
Disk /dev/hda: 64 heads, 63 sectors, 698 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 4032 * 512 bytes


16 partitions:
#       start       end      size     fstype   [fsize bsize   cpg]
  a:        1      1540      1540     4.2BSD     2048 16384   328 
  b:     1541      1704       164       swap                      
  c:        1      2794      2794     unused        0     0