# Partition table broken - (how) can I mount the im.. [SOLVED]

## daemonflower

Hi,

I have a USB stick here whose partition table suddenly vanished (apparently that happens to USB sticks sometimes). 

I have copied the raw data on the stick to my hard disk with dd. A grep on its contents tells me that at least some of the data on the stick are still present. (All the words in files I could think of matched.)

I would like to try to mount the dump as a file system, but I'm lacking two critical points of information:

One, can I mount a file as loopback device witch a specified offset from the start? If so, how? 

Two, what would that offset be? I expect a partition table with one entry, and then a normal VFAT filesystem on the stick (it's not mine, so I have to take a guess at this).

Grateful for any pointer,

HelLast edited by daemonflower on Sat Apr 19, 2008 8:56 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## Desintegr

You should use TestDisk to fix your partition table and/or Photorec to recover your data instead of using black magic  :Wink: .

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## daemonflower

Ok, thanks. Photorec doesn't restore the filenames and can only guess at the filetypes, but all in all restoring the data has been a success. Good to know that tool.

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