Hi, I have the following config:
fdisk -l:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 1912 15358108+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2 1913 10010 65047185 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5 1913 10010 65047153+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

no problem to mount the first partition sdb1 but I can't do the same for my extended one sdb5 (sdb2 is my container)

sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb5 /media/tmp

I get:
Failed to read last sector (130094306): Invalid argument
HINTS: Either the volume is a RAID/LDM but it wasn't setup yet,
or it was not setup correctly (e.g. by not using mdadm --build ...),
or a wrong device is tried to be mounted,
or the partition table is corrupt (partition is smaller than NTFS),
or the NTFS boot sector is corrupt (NTFS size is not valid).
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb5': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sdb5' 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?

Any way around? thanks

Are you sure the partition is NTFS?

What happens if you try to mount it without the '-t ntfs'?

How were the partitions created? How was the NTFS filesystem created?

Yes, I'm sure and I even tried with -t vfat without any change

An error occur: no filesystem specified

They were created under win XP env. My logical drive D: has been formatted with native XP format command.

Note: We are talking about a slave 80GB hard drive on which I've installed XP

So this is a drive that was partitioned into two by WinXP, and the WinXP system installed on the first partition (C:), with the second partition volume (D:), I take it.

There used to be a 'force' option on the Linux NTFS driver, I think it is now superceded by 'recover'. But I doubt it will help you in this case; it sounds more like a failure in using the boot sector of the partition than a simple journal issue.

There is a package testdisk that can be used to recover boot sectors, but if the partition is loading fine when under WinXP, that shouldn't be necessary.

You could try using the ntfs-3g driver instead of the ntfs one (though on newer distros, they may actually be the same thing).

You might try mounting it by uuid instead of /dev

No change

I couldn't find sdb5 UUID device number. Only primary one is listed:

sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="996910a6-d8e3-4230-bdee-d5992642fd46" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda5: UUID="48251033-3d80-4fe8-89f8-c4d243cabaea" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="2EB89D47B89D0E89" TYPE="ntfs"

Sorry - previous deleted - not concentrating.

What does "parted -l" (as root) return ?.

Does a partition have to be "Primary or logical" for a linux distro to rw. I noticed that you referred to an "extended partition" in your op.

this is the output:
Model: ATA WDC WD2500BB-55R (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 249GB 249GB primary ext4 boot
2 249GB 250GB 1072MB extended
5 249GB 250GB 1072MB logical linux-swap(v1)


Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!

I hope no, It would be very "strange"

I assume that sdb5 was/is accessible when running windows? Since there wasn't a blkid for sdb5 in your previous posts we can not tell that the partition was actually formatted.

Also there wasn't any output from parted for sdb?

Yes, partition is accessible from win.

here, the blkid output:
sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="996910a6-d8e3-4230-bdee-d5992642fd46" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda5: UUID="48251033-3d80-4fe8-89f8-c4d243cabaea" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="2EB89D47B89D0E89" TYPE="ntfs"

my second drive (sdb1) is shown but no the extended one (sdb2 -> sdb5)

Output from parted not blkid...

from my previous post:

for some reason parted only recognises your 250GB drive and not windows (sdb) as fdisk lists in you first post.

You can also try the following command and post the output
sudo file -s /dev/sdb5