Hi People,
I am in trouble and need help. I am new to Linux. I never tried installing Linux on the computer because of the complication of installing it. I now feel like it was a call from hell that I decided the install Linux (OpenSuse 11) all by myself (should have taken help) and messed up my computer. Here’s the story….

My computer
2 HDD (20 GB each)
4 partitions (2 each)
C:, D: (disk 1) – Windows XP + SP2 installed
X:, Z: (disk 2). Personal storage

I decided to install OpenSuse11 for which I made a disk. I formatted z: but still had some very important data in x drive. I rebooted my computer and started my initial installation process for Linux and then I noticed that I see only my Disk2 in the list of hard disk during the partition menu and said will format. Fearing of loss of data I aborted without making any changes. After I rebooted my computer I see something like GRUB (no clue what it is) and the computer restarts and cycle continues. I repaired my windows XP and now able to work with it. BUT my disk 2 is gone. If I go to Disk Management in XP the drive shows “Disk 1-dynamic-unreadable.” I need the data some how. I installed explore2fs but was not able to view the drive as well. Can anyone help? I need my data somehow……..
I am currently working on my disk 1 and have not touch disk 2. If any further information is required please do ask.

Thank You for reading my problem. Please respond.

I think the question is, what might have happened to the partition table on your second disk.

First of all, if you enter the BIOS setup program, can you still see both HD's? This is critical, if it is gone there, it is probably a hardware failure. I think you should be able to see both.

How was X drive formatted? What file system?

There are a lot of things for you to understand to install a dual boot system, it can be done, but you do not format the space first. Almost every distro has a partitioning and formatting programs included. Linux uses different file systems windoze can not read. ext2 is a standard linux file system. The program you mention will read a ext2 file system, but not one formatted by windoze. So, what file system did you put on Z??? ( in linux it would be more like hdb5 ).

Grub - Grand Universal Boot Loader. Usually it gets installed to the MBR on the boot disk during a linux install, near the end of the install process, so I dought it ever got installed. "Fixing XP" probably restored the MBR to a standard winbloze boot loader. That is good for now.

How to retrieve your data... If it were me, I dig out a bootable live linux CD such as Knoppix. Boot the system from the CD-rom drive, mount the disks, set up what ever networking I need and copy the data. Linux will read fat32 and NTFS partitions, and any linux partitions.

This is what I would recommend you try to retrieve your data. Don't get into panic mode, it will take some learning to do what I outlined, so first things first. Download Knoppix, I suggest it because there are a lot of people using it, and you can get lots of help. Burn the .iso image, you can find instructions on this board on how to... Please locate the instructions, and follow them. I'm assuming you have a CD burner. If not, could you get a friend to help?

You may have to enter your BIOS to set the CD drive as a bootable device. Set your system to boot from the CD ahead of the HD.

Boot Knoppix. Post back for more help...

Hi,

You could use 'testdisk' to try and recover the partition(s). 'UBCD Ultimate Boot CD' is a LiveCD that you can download to do some of the diagnostics or repair on your system. 'Testdisk' is included on the UBCD.

To repair the MBR just use the M$ Windows/xp fixboot from the recovery console.

This link and others are available from 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

Thanks camorri and onebuck for your replies.

My X drive was formated in NTFS. The problem is i have aborted the installation for linux but still it messed up my computer. Disk 2 does not show in my computer. And my windows does not boot. I need to use windows xp disk to open. i think MBR is messed up.

Tried testdisk but i was not able to understand where it will recover the data.

You can restore the windbloze mbr with the install CD. If you look through a windoze type forum I'm sure the how to's are there. I think you need to use the recovery console, but it has been a very long time since I had to fix this type of problem. Possibly someone here will chime in and post the steps...

BTW, you can not install linux to a NTFS partition. I don't hate myself enough to even give that head room...

thanks people i found all the data and windoze is booting up normally.

I went to bios and restore fault defaults and it worked out to boot my computer normally and using fixmbr to restore the HDD data.

Thanks for your help. After i backup all the data from disk 2 i will install opensuse 11 on my computer.