Question

I highlighted the row I am having a constant syntax error issue.  

import struct

record = open("block.dd")

def open(file):
    try:
        record = open(block.dd, "rb")
        record = bytearray()
        record = file.read(2048)
        file.close()
    finally:
        return record

def search_record(x, y):
    try:
        search = x[y]
    except(IOError):
        print('Cannot search')
    else:
        return search

status = 0x1BE
if status == 0x80:
    print("Status: Active")
else:
    print("Status: Not active")

ptype = record[0x1BE+4]
print("The partition type is " + str(search_file(record, ptype))

address = struct.unpack("<i", record[0x1BE+8:0x1BE+12])
print("Address of the first sector in the partition: " + str(address[0]))

Answer 1

1.First, you are doing something wrong in the following section

status = 0x1BE
if status == 0x80:
    print("Status: Active")
else:
    print("Status: Not active")

Should be like

status = record[0x1BE]
if status == 0x80:
    print("Status: Active")
else:
    print("Status: Not active")

2. <i means you are using little-endian integer. Make sure your format is correct.

struct.calcsize("<i") will return you 4 means it will try to read 4 bytes. Otherwise, your format of the expression is correct.

The following section works fine

>>> tup = struct.unpack('<i', struct.pack('<i',1))
>>> print(str(tup))
(1,)
>>> print(str(tup[0]))
1

So the only problem is the packing format. Kindly check that.