How to install gpart on Ubuntu

gpart is an essential utility for IT professionals to recover lost or deleted partitions on hard drives. It scans the drive for existing filesystems to determine the locations and boundaries of partitions, making it invaluable in data recovery when the partition table is corrupted or missing.

In Ubuntu, gpart is not pre-installed but can be easily obtained from the default apt repository. The installation process involves updating the package list and installing gpart via the apt package manager, ensuring you have the latest version and any necessary dependencies.

Once installed, gpart can scan and recover partition tables through its command-line interface, which offers various options for specifying scan parameters. These options allow users to tailor the recovery process to their specific needs, maximizing the chances of successfully recovering lost data.

1. Launch terminal.
2. Update apt's package list.

   $ sudo apt update
   Hit:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease
   Hit:2 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease
   Get:3 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates InRelease [111 kB]
   Get:4 http://jp.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports InRelease [98.3 kB]
   Fetched 210 kB in 1s (193 kB/s)     
   Reading package lists... Done
   Building dependency tree       
   Reading state information... Done
   All packages are up to date.

3. Install the gpart package using apt.

   $ sudo apt install --assume-yes gpart
   Reading package lists... Done
   Building dependency tree       
   Reading state information... Done
   The following NEW packages will be installed:
     gpart
   0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
   Need to get 35.2 kB of archives.
   After this operation, 82.9 kB of additional disk space will be used.

4. Start using gpart to recover lost or deleted partition tables.

   $ sudo gpart
   Usage: gpart [options] device
   Options: [-b <backup MBR>][-C c,h,s][-c][-d][-E][-e][-f][-g][-h][-i]
            [-K <last sector>][-k <# of sectors>][-L][-l <log file>]
            [-n <increment>][-q][-s <sector-size>]
            [-V][-v][-W <device>][-w <module-name,weight>]
   gpart v0.2.3-dev (c) 1999-2001 Michail Brzitwa <michail@brzitwa.de>.
   Guess PC-type hard disk partitions.

   More options for gpart.

   Options:
    -b  Save a backup of the original MBR to specified file.
    -C  Set c/h/s to be used in the scan.
    -c  Check/compare mode.
    -d  Do not start the guessing loop.
    -E  Do not try to identify extended partition tables.
    -e  Do not skip disk read errors.
    -f  Full scan.
    -g  Do not try to get the disk geometry.
    -h  Show this help.
    -i  Run interactively (ask for confirmation).
    -K  Scan only up to given sector.
    -k  Skip sectors before scan.
    -L  List available modules and their weights, then exit.
    -l  Logfile name.
    -n  Scan increment: number or 's' sector, 'h' head, 'c' cylinder.
    -q  Run quiet (however log file is written if specified).
    -s  Sector size to use (disable sector size probing).
    -V  Show version.
    -v  Verbose mode. Can be given more than once.
    -W  Write guessed primary partition table to given device or file.
    -w  Weight factor of module.