Partition Manager Crash
 

So I just installed Mint 14 KDE 64-bit yesterday and today I was doing some computer cleanup (deleting some some extra partitions created by dell and moving others around to have a free partition for files). So I was in the process of moving my windows partition to the left and it got to around 21% when the partition manager crashed on me! Now I am left with an unbootable windows, which I cannot reinstall because I don't know the key #! (I also have some less important files that I didn't backup but I would rather keep). I tried running a disk check in the Partition manager, but windows is stuck in hibernate... Do you guys have any input on the matter? I would really appreciate it, thanks!

Welcome to GNU/Linux, where mistakes don't cost money, just time enough to learn how not to make the same mistake again!
I have been free of the Pane for four years now, almost. You can become so, too, if desired!

Yes, I am eager to learn! But I have a lot of programs that I still need to use on windows, so the pain remains. Especially now that I cannot boot windows :(

Migrating partitions is always perilous, and should never be attempted without first backing up everything on the drive.

I assume by the wording of your post that you did not make a backup first, in which case you should cease ALL I/O on the drive in question, and use a utility such as testdisk or photorec to attempt to recover the files you need. If nothing has been written to the drive since this fubar, then you have a good chance of recovering most of the files that were present on it at the time it was...killed. However, chances are this will not save your Windows installation, it will merely allow you to recover pictures, music, movies, documents, etc that were saved on that partition.

As for recovering Windows itself...the chances aren't good. It really depends on what you were doing to the drive and what the progress was when it crashed. Why do you not have the Windows key? Even OEM installations provide you with a key or a recovery partition for re-installation. Depending on the status of the drive, it may be recoverable. If you could post the output of the following, along with your idea of the sizes of your drives, partitions, and the contents of each, it would help:

Damn... Thought so... I may have the key, but I am using a laptop that came preinstalled with windows, so I don't know where to find it. Any ideas?

I deleted the 312MB Dell utility partition already so its gone. However, I still have the 19.82GB RECOVERY partition.


Luckily, I did back up all my school work and I was able to force unmount the drive to start backing up other media.

I am also in the process of downloading an iso of the windows installation disc, in case I can do anything with that.

Thanks a lot for the help so far!

Here is the fdisk data:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbfa53dc7

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda2 * 63 41560154 20780046 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 41560155 592898138 275668992 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4 906266622 976771071 35252225 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 953335808 976771071 11717632 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 918179840 953335807 17577984 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 917985280 918177791 96256 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 906266624 917983231 5858304 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdc: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x3e12cce7

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 63 3907024064 1953512001 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

---------- Post added 04-02-13 at 11:05 PM ----------

And here is the df data:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6 17G 4.9G 11G 32% /
udev 2.9G 12K 2.9G 1% /dev
tmpfs 1.2G 1.9M 1.2G 1% /run
none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
none 2.9G 84K 2.9G 1% /run/shm
none 100M 12K 100M 1% /run/user
/dev/sda5 11G 1.6G 8.9G 16% /home
/dev/sda7 92M 40M 47M 46% /boot
/dev/sda3 263G 222G 42G 85% /media/OS

any ideas?

Not many - and none that are likely to do you any good.
ntfs-3g specifically warns against screwing with hibernated NTFS systems. There are Linux tools for NTFS, but the fsck/fix tools are somewhat less than the (proprietary) Windows ones. See "man ntfsprogs".