hello,

I have a 3TB drive that I have been having quite a lot of problems with.
I have partitioned it into 3 gpt partitions, approximately 1TB for the first two and 841 (what's left) for the last one.
I am using mostly Windows 7, but I have ubuntu installed too.
My problem is that I have 312GB in the last partition (841) it but it's full. How could that be ? If I use the software windirstat, it says that 528GB are 'unknown', and indeed that's approximately 841-312. There are no hidden/system files. These tests were from Windows 7, but apparently ubuntu also says it's full.
I tried to ls into /media/... and in some cases it says io error.
The disk is new and its integrity seems fine (no smart errors).

Can you help me to solve this please ?

ps: the disk is actually not mine so please be precise with your questions/tests/walkthroughs so that I don't have to borrow it every time.

Thanks.

In a terminal window in Ubuntu, run the command sudo fdisk -l; that should list the partition information for all the partitions.

Then post the output here.

Okay I'll post it as soon as I have the disk again.
But I don't think it will say not much more than what I described in the first post.

Any more commands/tests or anything else you would want me to do when I have access to it ?

By the way do I need a 64 bit version of ubuntu for this 3TB hdd, since it has to be gpt (the windows 7 is 64 bit) ?

It will give us a start as to how Linux is seeing the drives. That can help us decide what to ask or test for next.

hi, ok there it is:


Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19452 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xfd478bc7

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 18178 146008158+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 * 18178 19453 10240000 83 Linux

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdb'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.


Disk /dev/sdb: 3000.6 GB, 3000592982016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 364801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 267350 2147483647+ ee GPT

Disk /dev/sdc: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x607fac4a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 121601 976760001 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdd: 128.0 GB, 128035676160 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 15566 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x7a5608cc

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 * 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdd2 13 15566 124930048 7 HPFS/NTFS

And also, everytime windows starts, it tries to do a scan disk because it says that this partition contains errors. This process never ends, so it has to be skipped when the computer starts.

So any idea what's wrong ?

Can someone please help me to figure out what's wrong while I still have access to the hard drive ?
I don't understand why it says it's full if it's not...

If the bootup OS is Linux you can try the fdisk -l hda or sda.

Disk /dev/sdb: 5129 MB, 5129671680 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 623 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 624 5009444+ ee GPT
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(0, 0, 1) logical=(0, 0, 2)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(1023, 254, 63) logical=(623, 164, 63)


You could also try df -h

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 323M 165M 142M 54% /
tmpfs 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /lib/init/rw
udev 2.0G 240K 2.0G 1% /dev
tmpfs 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda9 55G 4.5G 48G 9% /home
/dev/sda8 368M 11M 339M 3% /tmp
/dev/sda5 8.3G 4.7G 3.2G 60% /usr
/dev/sda6 2.8G 2.0G 677M 75% /var

The above examples are from my own machine using those commands. You will probably be unable to run those commands as a regular user so you need to sudo or use su.

Finally use the Windows tools with which I am not familiar on Vista 7.
I am sorry the spaces or tabs don't translate real well in this forum window.

Hello,

It looks like your 3gb disk only has 1 partition.

Do you have 4 disks on your system? Did you try to raid the disks before?

In Ubuntu, did you use the parted command to list the partitions on your sdb drive? (fdisk told you to do that.)

IIRC, Windows creates a backup copy of the $mtf file at the physical end of a disk in a non-standard, hidden, partition. On a 3TB drive that would be a fairly big file, and the "standard" Windows partitioning tools would not show you that space since it's "reserved for the Windows OS. The Ubuntu tools may have shown you that space as available, but, when windows used it, it would be "gone" from your drive.

(Note that the above is speculation: I don't even know what a "GUID Patition Table" is, and haven't used Windows since XP.)

I looked up GUID partition table yesterday. Apparently they work fine with Linux, but fdisk doesn't understand them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

I decided I wouldn't put my oar in and decided to wait to see if someone more knowledgeable than I could chime in.

I'm going to suggest this to the OP:

Boot to a GParted Live CD or USB stick. Run GParted. Don't actually do anything; just take some pictures of what GPartED displays regarding the drive in question and about its partitions.

There's documentation at the website.

Screenshots will be more trouble than they are worth from a live boot. Use a digital camera.

Take more pictures than you think you will need, then post the ones that seem to convey the most information. Either post them here or, if you have a website, upload them and post the links here. You may need to take some practice shots to find the best settings.

I know it sounds like a lot of work, but we're game if you are. Sometimes a picture really is worth etc.

Edit: You may find the answer simply by using GParted. It's much more user friendly than fdisk.