Lost NTFS partition?

Jongi · 06-17-2005, 03:20 PM

Everything (well almost evrything) was working seemingly. Then when I next rebooted I noticed that I couldn't access one of my partitions on my 80GB hard drive. The following (part) output is from: # fdisk -l

Code:

Disk /dev/hda: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1        1912    15358108+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2            1913        9963    64669657+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda3            3188        9963    54428188+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda5            1913        3187    10241374+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

It can see hda5. But it doesn't want to mount hda3. The /etc/fstab file is as follows:

Code:

/dev/hdc2            /                    ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/hdd1            /mnt/media_store     ntfs       user,umask=0          0 0
/dev/hdc1            swap                 swap       pri=42                0 0
devpts               /dev/pts             devpts     mode=0620,gid=5       0 0
proc                 /proc                proc       defaults              0 0
usbfs                /proc/bus/usb        usbfs      noauto                0 0
sysfs                /sys                 sysfs      noauto                0 0
/dev/dvdrecorder     /media/dvdrecorder   subfs      fs=cdfss,ro,procuid,nosuid,nodev,exec,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/fd0             /media/floppy        subfs      fs=floppyfss,procuid,nodev,nosuid,sync 0 0
/dev/hda3	     /mnt/windows	  ntfs	     user,umask=0	   0 0
/dev/hda5            /mnt/shared          vfat       user,umask=0          0 0

The strange thing is that although hda1 and hda3 are NTFS partitions, the following is what LVM shows. They are definitely not Linux native partitions.

abisko00 · 06-17-2005, 05:02 PM

Did you try manual mounting with 'mount /dev/hda3'? Maybe you need to set the option 'auto' for automated mounting of that partition.

Jongi · 06-18-2005, 10:32 AM

Looks like the problem could be a disk one. Running testdisk to check things out

Jongi · 06-18-2005, 03:18 PM

Looks like I did something to screw up the NTFS partition royally. This is what gpart returns

Code:

Begin scan...
Possible partition(Windows NT/W2K FS), size(14998mb), offset(0mb)
Possible partition(DOS FAT), size(10001mb), offset(14998mb)
Possible partition(Windows NT/W2K FS), size(0mb), offset(70046mb)
End scan.

Checking partitions...
Partition(OS/2 HPFS, NTFS, QNX or Advanced UNIX): primary 
Partition(DOS or Windows 95 with 32 bit FAT): primary 
Partition(OS/2 HPFS, NTFS, QNX or Advanced UNIX): primary 
Ok.

Guessed primary partition table:
Primary partition(1)
   type: 007(0x07)(OS/2 HPFS, NTFS, QNX or Advanced UNIX)
   size: 14998mb #s(30716217) s(63-30716279)
   chs:  (0/1/1)-(1023/15/63)d (0/1/1)-(30472/7/63)r

Primary partition(2)
   type: 011(0x0B)(DOS or Windows 95 with 32 bit FAT)
   size: 10001mb #s(20482748) s(30716406-51199153)
   chs:  (1023/15/63)-(1023/15/63)d (30472/10/1)-(50792/12/62)r

Primary partition(3)
   type: 007(0x07)(OS/2 HPFS, NTFS, QNX or Advanced UNIX)
   size: 0mb #s(1) s(143456166-143456166)
   chs:  (1023/15/63)-(1023/15/63)d (142317/10/1)-(142317/10/1)r

Primary partition(4)
   type: 000(0x00)(unused)
   size: 0mb #s(0) s(0-0)
   chs:  (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)d (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)r

Partition 3 is not meant to be 0MB and I suspect there isn't supposed to be a Partition 4.

Anyone know how to recover an NTFS partition just using Linux (SuSE in this case?)

Jongi · 06-18-2005, 03:28 PM

** Error: invalid extended ptbl found at sector (30716280)

** Warning: short read near sector (160086339), 64512 bytes instead of 66048. Skipping...
End Scan.

The first one is before Begin scan... and the second one before Checking partitions...

Jongi · 06-23-2005, 03:13 AM

Ok so now I have reformatted the drive and reinstalled XP on that drive (still NTFS). Except now the mbr has been re-written and LILO no longer comes up. Problem is that I do not have my SuSE DVD with me at present (and possibly not for a while as well). So is there a boot image that I can download and be able to boot say a floppy and repair the mbr from within Linux?

equinox · 06-23-2005, 04:00 AM

Have u got no other Linux cds? Using chroot should do the trick!

Jongi · 06-23-2005, 05:27 AM

I have a Mandrake 10.1 CD. Can I use that?

equinox · 06-23-2005, 05:50 AM

Yup you can! Just make some mountpoints and mount your filesystems and chroot

!

Jongi · 06-24-2005, 03:05 AM

equinox: to you that seems easy. can i assume you mean:

1. Boot up from the Mandrake CD
2. ?
3. ?
4. Login (presumably as root) into Mandrake?
5. # chroot

Jongi · 07-03-2005, 01:24 PM

So I have installed Mandriva Linux 2005 Limited Edition. Lilo is loaded as well.

I type chroot and nothing gives me confidence that the SuSE install is fixed

equinox · 07-03-2005, 01:40 PM

Dude, typing chroot doesnt magically fix things ok... It's alot complicated. My advice was to boot with the MDK cds and switch to a console and mount your partitions...

i.e:

If SuSE was installed as follows:

/dev/hda1 = / (reiserfs)
/dev/hda2 = swap (swap)

You would do this:

mkdir /mnt/suse
mount -t reiserfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/suse

Then:

chroot /mnt/suse /bin/bash
OR
chroot /mnt/suse -s /bin/bash

Now after doing that, you're now in your SuSE environment. And to fix your MBR or boot problems, just run:

/sbin/lilo

Then to exit all this do:

exit
cd /
umount /mnt/suse
reboot

Am I making sense?

Jongi · 07-04-2005, 09:21 AM

That should do the trick. Thanks.