Linux can't mount Win 7 partition
 

Toshiba Satellite Win 7 which won't boot past BIOS - left with non-blinking cursor.Hitachi hard drive partitioned into 3 part - 1.4 gb MBR / 222gb Windows C:/ 20gb HD Recovery. Unfortunately owner did not make recovery discs. Data is not critical but would be nice.

Hitachi DFT drive test utility does not see the drive - error is no controller found

Pulled Hitachi drive and placed into external USB case. Plugged into PCLinuxOS installation. Drive Spins up OK

PCLinuxOS sees and CAN mount the ntfs-3g MBR AND the HD Recovery partitions but will not mount the Windows C;/ drive partition. Google finds lots of threads about downloading ntfs-3g package to mount the partitions but this is not the problem as Linux sees and mounts the MBR and Recovery partitions.

Is the Hitachi partition table corrupted? What tools to use to fix?

GParted, TestDisk?

Any help appreciated.

Hitachi DFT is running on DOS. It can't cope with the AHCI. To get it working you have to disable AHCI in your BIOS.

If I understand your explanation right, Linux can see all three partitions, but can only mount two of them. Therefore I would assume that this is not a problem with the partition table.

To understand your problems better you should post the actual error-message you get. "Can't mount" is not sufficient.

Tried to change SATA/IDE emulation in BIOS but will look for way to disable AHCI.
Yes all partitions seen but main Windows partition not mountable.
Sorry, but erro message was pretty much "could not mount partition" along with a HUGE list of possibilities.

Will give the AHCI thing a try and will try to post complete error mssg.

Thanks

Tried to change SATA/IDE emulation in BIOS but will look for way to disable AHCI.
Yes all partitions seen but main Windows partition not mountable.
Sorry, but error message was pretty much "could not mount partition" along with a HUGE list of possibilities.

Will give the AHCI thing a try and will try to post complete error mssg.

Thanks

Please post that list of possibilities, it may be that it helps us to recognize the problem.

You don't need to use ntfs-3g. Almost all distro's have that in it already. May simply need to mount read/write from gui.
In most instances it can't access an ntfs because it is not clean or termed dirty or has some errors and requires checkdisk.

The simple answer would be to boot to any Windows 7 dvd and run checkdisk from repair tools.

You didn't really need to change emulation mode for drive. Remember to move that back.

There are linux tools like ntfsfix and ntfsinfo that but MS really has it so you need to fix it with windows.