Mandrake overwrote ntfs with fat32

spoody_goon · 10-19-2004, 05:20 PM

My hard drive looks like this
25gig ntfs with xp installed
30gig fat32 no OS installed
7gig Linux /
1gig Linux swap
15gig Linux /home

During an install of Mandrake 10 I was changing the size of the Linux partitions and when I wrote the partition table it changed the ntfs with xp to fat32. I can mount the partition but there is not files there, it was not formated only the file type was change.
Does anyone know of a way I can retrive files from the partition or am I in trouble. I am not worried about xp I can reinstall it I just want some of the files.
Thanks

spoody_goon · 10-20-2004, 04:11 PM

**Bump**
One more try.
No ideas?

Kilahchris · 10-20-2004, 05:57 PM

Quote:

During an install of Mandrake 10 I was changing the size of the Linux partitions and when I wrote the partition table it changed the ntfs with xp to fat32. I can mount the partition but there is not files there, it was not formated only the file type was change.

Im not sure how you changed the type of Windows partition without formatting. If NTFS existed on the drive before, and if whatever tool you are using is actually correct then your files are gone?

Are you able to login to Windows XP? If you can then whatever tool you are looking at is not 100 percent accurate. And quite possible you cannot see the files in the partition because it may not be supported in kernel. But all those are just "IF's"

michaelk · 10-20-2004, 06:05 PM

post the results of the console command:
fdisk -l /dev/hda

You need to be logged in as root. Replace hda with the actual location of the hard drive
hda - 1st IDE controller master
hdb - 1st IDE controller slave
hdc - 2nd IDE controller master
and so on...

spoody_goon · 10-20-2004, 06:28 PM

Thanks here you go:

fdisk -l /dev/hda1

Disk /dev/hda1: 26.2 GB, 26222160384 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3187 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

michaelk · 10-21-2004, 06:40 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by spoody_goon

fdisk -l /dev/hda1

Do not specify a partition number.

fdisk -l /dev/hda

spoody_goon · 10-21-2004, 03:41 PM

Sorry here you go... Currently it is:

fdisk -l /dev/hda

Disk /dev/hda: 82.3 GB, 82348277760 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 10011 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 3188 25607578+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/hda2 3189 10011 54805747+ 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 3189 7025 30820671 b W95 FAT32
/dev/hda6 7026 8866 14787801 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 8867 9019 1228941 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda8 9020 10011 7968208+ 83 Linux

Thanks

michaelk · 10-21-2004, 08:24 PM

Well, your correct the windows partitions are FAT32. I've never known Mandrake to change a partition ID but then again anything is possible. You might be able to just use fdisk to change the parititon ID to NTFS and see what happens.

spoody_goon · 10-21-2004, 09:46 PM

Ok I gave that a try and no luck. I was able to mount the partition but there was nothing there. I was hoping for a software solution, you know the one you always see on the tv shows where the police can get data off of hard drives despite all sorts of problems. Maybe that is just tv and not real world stuff.
Do you have any other ideas? Is there any other information I should share with you?
Thanks

Kilahchris · 10-22-2004, 01:01 AM

what distro and kernel version are you using. I had a similar problem with Red Hat 9. The Red Hat 9 stock kernel did not have ntfs filesystem suport. I was only able to get it going after Kernel upgrade.???

spoody_goon · 10-22-2004, 03:51 PM

No it's not a ntfs support problem it did work fine I just make a mistake upon reinstallation. Mandrake10 has ntfs support.
Thanks

Kilahchris · 10-22-2004, 07:53 PM

are you able to boot in windows through your boot manager?

spoody_goon · 10-22-2004, 08:37 PM

Nope just Linux, the windows boot gives the error message that this is "not a bootable disk"

itismike · 11-05-2004, 06:13 AM

Yep...Mandrake 10 (BETA I think) does NOT play nice with Windows. I've had it wipe out my MBR twice without even asking it to install a bootloader there. As I wrote in a previous post, this problem really sucks for the Linux community. It will make many curious people swear off of Linux completely.

[edit]

I found a possible solution. Check this out: This link explains it.

[/edit]

Quote:

So, I installed Mandrake 10 beta AGAIN, this time on a separate drive, and told it to put the boot info in the /boot directory on the Linux drive...

in other words, according to my install preferences, I had requested that Linux NOT TOUCH the boot sector on hda1. Well, you guessed it...It wiped it out again.

NTLDR not found. Press enter to reboot.

I could nearly pull my hair out. So I tried fixboot and fixmbr from the win2000 install disk, and tried to find a Linux tool that would let me read and write to my NTFS partition to edit my boot.ini file and make sure all was ok, but I couldn't find an effective tool. Having reached a point where I was running out of ideas, I let Windows Repair process try an automatic fix.

That was a BIG mistake. After warning me that the boot sector seems unconventional and it was about to make permanent changes that could be irreversible, I let it eat (so to speak.) A second later, text scrolled the screen up and I was left with

Complete.
C:>_

then I looked up to see what it had reported...

Recognized a FAT32 filesystem.
repairing damaged filesystem.

NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep. Windows 'automatic repair' thought it was working on a FAT32 disk, when it was actually a NTFS. Well, it repaired it alright! I mounted the drive from Linux to take a look...EVERYTHING was completely scrambled.

related thread in the Fedora forum
Sorry to be the guy to discourage your efforts, but if you're still working on this I'd suggest throwing in the towel.

After reinstalling my win2000 in the first drive again, I have been using the Mandrake OS with no further conflicts.

Mike