Nobody uses floppies anymore... Don't waste you're time with instructions like that... They're ancient. If Gparted worked to get you to the diagnostic tools and then failed when trying to access the disk to read it's structure, then colucix is most probably correct in that it's a hardware failure...

On a positive note (I suppose), it's unlikely anything your ex did, at that point. So not likely espionage...

Warranty or paid repair time... unfortunately.

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Don't use the diskette version, you the bootable CD and write it to your USB using Unetbootin.

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I found files/folders that didn't see right on my laptop and need your opinion/advice!

It appears as though my laptop actually was compromised - looks like several partitions and operating systems on my hard drive, not sure though.

I attached a couple of screen shots and one pdg. The files were binary files and some over 300 pages.

Is this normal? My laptop came with Windows 7, I got rid of it and put Ubuntu on it but then suddenly my operating system was gone. I have been unable to load another one since - about two weeks ago now.

Thank you!!

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index of etc.pdf (6.8 KB, 27 views)

There is nothing at all in the screenshots and the PDF that is unusual or points to a compromised system.
As suggested several times now, the issues you have point to a hardware failure. Have you run the recommended tests in the meantime?

Rebecca,

You're misinterpreting what you are seeing,... If you can look at the file called fstab on the laptop's hard drive, located in the /etc directory, please post it...

It's Normal for a / (or root partition) to contain the following;
/bin
/boot
/etc
/dev
/proc
/opt
/usr
... among others (/init, and so on)

There can also be a separate /home partition, which will contain the users directories, or /home can be a directory on the root drive.

What you were looking at are the files on the disk... Actually, some of the files don't reside there at all and are "virtual" directories & files, created when the system boots,... like /proc and /dev,...

You shouldn't be looking at the files in /proc if you are going to be wiping that drive.

Please boot Gparted live, and go into the disk partitioning tool. You are going to be looking for the sda drive, which might be broken into sda1, sda2, sda3, sda4, etc. sda1 would be the boot partition. Sda2 would likely be an extended partition. Sda2 would likely contain the sub-partitions with additiona numbered designations.

You will see a graphical representation of your drive's partition in a bar graph, color coded by partition type. You want to delete the partitions that reside within the extended partition first, followed by the main one...

When creating new ones, you want to creat a primary, then an extended, and within the extended, you want to make sub-partitons for your /home partition and your swap partition. If you make 30% of the drive as primary, in the extended, most of it for /home with a space of about a few times your RAM for your swap, you should be fine...

I'm thinking that in addition to overlapping partitions, you have a disk that is a hybrid GPT and MBR type drive,... Complicating your problem...

Try downloading and burning a disk or USB stick with PartedMagic:
http://partedmagic.com/doku.php

And see if you can get it's tools to recognize the drive.

I've found over 100 partitions on the hard drive. I removed the hard drive and the virtual file system(s) are still loading, security settings and internet interfaces that i haven't a clue about are still there - I'm connected to the internet even when I think I'm not. How do I get rid of this stuff????

On boot up I've been getting an immediate message of a hidden fat12 pb...something but hadn't paid much attention to it but why do I still see it if the hard drive is out???.

How do I clear the memory of everything - all that's been done to it?

One last thing - considered download and flashing bios...EVERYTIME I try to download anything to do with recovery it gets blocked. It won't download - how can this be? I had another USB plugged in and was using for storage - where I download gparted and other operating systems and everything has been deleted - on it's own. How??

I know I sound like a lil off but this is nuts....my laptop is not my own. Feel like I'm just allowed to use it. Oh, and btw, only for about 10 minutes at a time - found a script to set the processor temp to 185 degrees - that's why it's been getting so hot lately??

Can I take care of this myself? Erasing memory...something?

There are 130 partitions on it - hard drive is taken care of!

Thanks for all your help - I suspected I was hacked but not to that extent. I don't know enough about computers to know what to look for - I'm learning though!

I know what to do about my memory -

Thanks again!