NTFS drive stopped working in linux, still boots fine

Tedward · 09-30-2010, 10:16 AM

I have had my computer set to dual boot Windows 7 for months now with no issue. Now today when I logged on to Slackware (13.1 x86_64) it suddenly stopped recognizing that my Windows 7 drive has anything on it. Fdisk cannot see any partitions anymore. Yet I can reboot the computer and run Windows 7 off it just fine. The windows drive should be /dev/sdb with sdb1 being its system reserved partition and sdb2 being the actual Windows partition.

Dmesg sees that it is there like my other drives, but it appears that the Windows 7 partition is not unaccessable to anything in Linux.

How could this work yesterday yet today it doesn't? I didn't change anything.

basheer · 09-30-2010, 10:45 AM

check your /etc/fstab file.

Tedward · 09-30-2010, 01:53 PM

Quote:

/dev/sda1 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/sda2 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/sdd1 /media/x ext3 defaults 1 0
/dev/sdb2 /media/windows ntfs-3g umask=000 0 0
/dev/sde1 /media/external ntfs-3g umask=000 0 0
#/dev/sde1 /media/external vfat rw,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0
#/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom auto noauto,owner,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0

This is my fstab file. It worked with this exact file yesterday. It's messed up because even when i run fdisk on /dev/sdb it shows there are NO partitions on it, even though it used to read them and the partitions ARE there, I can still run Windows 7 off it just fine.

willysr · 09-30-2010, 03:36 PM

try to mount manually and see the results

Tedward · 09-30-2010, 05:44 PM

I do and it tells me the partition does not exist. I've been playing with linux for 5 years now so I do know a thing or 2 about mounting drives, I can usually figure that out. The problem is that it's not letting me see the partitions on /dev/sdb, which is my windows drive.

Quote:

# fdisk /dev/sdb

Shows me that it recognizes that a drive is there, but p prints out that the drive doesn't have any partitions on it.

I thought the drive went bad or something, but when I boot up the drive from LILO it starts windows normally and there are no problems with the drive.

I have been able to mount it consistantly on any distro until today. I upgraded my kernel to 2.6.35.3 weeks ago, but how could it have been working until today, without me changing anything?

STDOUBT · 10-01-2010, 03:46 AM

Please show us output of following commands:

mount

and

fdisk -l

and

mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt/hd

(assuming you have nothing already mounted on /mnt/hd)
I wonder if it's possible for Windows to have an update
that munges the way Linux sees NTFS? I wouldn't be too
surprised.

Tedward · 10-01-2010, 09:28 AM

mount

Quote:

ntfs-3g: Failed to access volume '/dev/sdb2': No such file or directory

ntfs-3g 2010.3.6 integrated FUSE 27 - Third Generation NTFS Driver
Configuration type 1, XATTRS are on, POSIX ACLS are off

Copyright (C) 2005-2007 Yura Pakhuchiy
Copyright (C) 2006-2009 Szabolcs Szakacsits
Copyright (C) 2007-2010 Jean-Pierre Andre
Copyright (C) 2009 Erik Larsson

Usage: ntfs-3g [-o option[,...]] <device|image_file> <mount_point>

Options: ro (read-only mount), remove_hiberfile, uid=, gid=,
umask=, fmask=, dmask=, streams_interface=.
Please see the details in the manual (type: man ntfs-3g).

Example: ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows

Ntfs-3g news, support and information: http://ntfs-3g.org

fdisk

Quote:

sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19452 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe686f016

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

mount /dev/sdb /mnt/hd

Quote:

mount: special device /dev/sdb2 does not exist

It's just acting like it isn't there at all. Yet windows boots just fine off it...

STDOUBT · 10-03-2010, 02:17 AM

In case you're still hammering at this problem, here's a simple way
to find out if it's specific to the kernel or configs in Slackware.
Might be worth a try to see if you can mount that drive (normally)
under a live Ubuntu CD. Difference between 2.6.33 and 2.6.35.