Hello, I am new to Linux and am using it in an attempt to backup all of the files off of my dead Windows xp Computer. Right now I am using the 9.10 live disk of Ubuntu and cannot get the program to recognize what kind of file system my internal hard drive is using. (A western digital 320 GB hard drive with partition 1 in NTFS and part2 in FAT32) I would like to be able to back up this drive onto my 1 TB Western Digital external hard drive that is also in ntfs.

Now here comes the wierd part, it won't read or recognize my interal and external hard drives that run those file systems but it will recognize and allow me to read, edit, and access all of the ntfs hard drives on my home network. I did some lurking and tried a tutorial for creating a mount point and on how to force mount a disk, but neither of my disks would show up in Places/Computer. So then I checked the /etc/fstab file and is says,

aufs / aufs rw 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs nosuid,nodev 0 0

Which I think means that it says I have no hard drives installed or connected to the computer. Yet when I go into Disk Utility it tells me the disk is there and asks if I want to format the disk into ntfs...

Help would be appreciated, and I am completely new at linux, thanks in advance.

Ratbarf

In your live session - open a root terminal and enter:

fdisk -l

this will tell you the drives that it can see with their file systems. The content of fstab will not normally tell you this.

In general, IDE0 is /dev/sda and windows root is usually the first or second partition an that. You access the files with

mkdir /mnt/win1
ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/win1

ntfs file systems are mounted with ntfs-3g, but everything else should be available to the mount command.

(IIRC: in Ubuntu 9.10 you go Applications > Accessories > Terminal - in terminal enter "sudo su -" to turn it into a root terminal. Older versions there was a seperate menu item.)

Thanks for the reply.

So after mucking around a bit I got the second partition to work, the external is still unresponsive as well as the first partition of the internal.

When I did fdsik -l this is what I got.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ fdisk -l
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo su
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 41345 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xcab10bee

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 40117 303284488+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 40119 41345 9276120 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu#

Im not sure what IDE0 is, the first partition is the unworking version of windows and my user files and the second partition is the recovery HP-Recvovery partition. Where it says system is Linux, does that mean that I should put Linux in after the mount -t instead of ntfs?

This is what I got when I ran your second set of terminal instructions.

root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# mkdir /mnt/win1
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu# ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/win1
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sda1' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
root@ubuntu:/home/ubuntu#

Good - so the first hdd is detected OK.
In your initial post you indicated more than one drive - is this correct or were you referring to each windows drive letters as a seperate drive?

The first partition is formatted to ext3 - not ntfs.
The second partition is FAT32. So to mount them:

mkdir /mnt/lin
mkdir /mnt/w95
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/lin
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/w95

Now - lie down... you may want to have a strong drink handy:
You have no ntfs partitions on that drive

- which is probably why windows is not working: you have managed to reformat it's partition.
Unfortunately this usually means all your files are destroyed. You may be able to use a disk recovery program to find files but I don't hold out much hope.

http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/126525
... probably amongst the most likely candidates.

You can use the live disk as a recovery CD - sudo apt-get install magicrescue
I don't know if this program can rescue from ntfs after a format to ext. You can certainly expect lots of corrupt files where the inodes got written.

And, of course, you can always use grep to hunt down files if you are really despirate.

There is another possibility:
... perhaps sda is the external?

dmesg | grep sda

lsusb

ratbarf:

Some tools you may find useful:
TestDisk
System Rescue CD

and one I just started looking at:
Hiren's Boot CD

"... perhaps sda is the external?"

I don't thinks so, I'm on a different computer at the moment so I can't double check, it knows there is a drive there on Disk Manager, it just hasn't recognized the file system. Which is ntfs as thats what the box it was shipped in stated. I could reformat it but I don't really want to as I might lose all of the data already stored on it. If I could create a partition of say 100 gb and then format that only I would, but I don't know how.

"- which is probably why windows is not working: you have managed to reformat it's partition.
Unfortunately this usually means all your files are destroyed. You may be able to use a disk recovery program to find files but I don't hold out much hope."

Hmm, it says that 298 of 311 is used so I think it still has files on it. If I had reformatted the drive would that still be there?

And finally, if it is ext 3 what command line would I use to mount that? EDIT: sorry I didn't realise the line mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/lin appleid to that.

Will try them when I get back to my own computer later tonight.

Thanks

I thought the disk manager vanished after dapper?

That would be with gparted. But you need a block file and fdisk says there isn't one.

What? Where?

should be mount -t ext3 etc

but it could be ext4 and it still won't mount. If I leave off the -t option, linux will attempt to detect it.

root@ubuntu:~# dmesg | tail
[ 62.186872] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0
[ 62.760717] lp: driver loaded but no devices found
[ 62.971820] ppdev: user-space parallel port driver
[ 63.513435] cx25840 1-0044: loaded v4l-cx25840.fw firmware (16382 bytes)
[ 67.956020] eth0: no IPv6 routers present
[ 108.568257] UDF-fs: Partition marked readonly; forcing readonly mount
[ 108.568629] UDF-fs INFO UDF: Mounting volume 'WD SmartWare', timestamp 2009/10/14 21:49 (1000)
[ 131.340029] Clocksource tsc unstable (delta = -307531772 ns)
[ 8142.783759] VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev sda1.
[ 8154.335150] EXT4-fs (sda1): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem


Thats the dmesg I got after I treid to mount sda1 with ext3 and 4.

As for the disk manager disapearing, sorry I was using the Gparted that is in System/Administrative on the Ubuntu header. It says that sda1 has 298.23 used gigs on it but the Palimsest Disk Utility says there is 311 gigs on that partition. I think I could use Gparted to create a partition on my 1 TB external but I don't know how to get Gparted to see any drive aside from sda. The external is called sdb.

I did that Grep thing you suggested and got this.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ dmesg | grep sda
[ 2.084460] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 625142448 512-byte logical blocks: (320 GB/298 GiB)
[ 2.084494] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[ 2.084497] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 2.084515] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 2.084619] sda:
[ 2.105622] sda1 sda2
[ 2.105794] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
[ 8142.783759] VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev sda1.
[ 8154.335150] EXT4-fs (sda1): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem

So I don't think its that.

Not sure how to get magic user to work, I tried the command line you posted and it said it couldn't locate magic user.

[quote=Ratbarf;3818326]root@ubuntu:~# dmesg | tail

[ 8142.783759] VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev sda1.
[ 8154.335150] EXT4-fs (sda1): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem
[quote]
Troubling as it is marked id83 in fdisk.
Try mounting without specifying a fs.

As for the disk manager disapearing, sorry I was using the Gparted that is in System/Administrative on the Ubuntu header. It says that sda1 has 298.23 used gigs on it but the Palimsest Disk Utility says there is 311 gigs on that partition. I think I could use Gparted to create a partition on my 1 TB external but I don't know how to get Gparted to see any drive aside from sda. The external is called sdb.

sdb is not listed in fdisk either.
ls -l /dev/sdb*

lsusb

The 1TB externals are often two 512gig drives in buggy RAID.
What is the actual drive model?

Thats "magicrescue". The command installs it.

It may turn out simpler to rescue sda than try to mount it.
Do you get any dmesg for sdb?