changing the file-system appears unsuccessful as yast cannot even identify a coherent file-system anymore and any attempts to mount the drive have failed as have the vista memory boot disc diagnostic they both say that the file-system is ruined. Do you think data recovery discs would make it any worse (if that is possible)?
thanks again for your persistent help.
Its might be possible that it can yet be fixed.
Need first to see the output of ‘fdisk’ listing with sectors instead of blocks.
sudo /sbin/fdisk -l -u
second need to see the Volume Boot Record of sda2 (if I am reading correct that is the bad partition).
dd if=sda2 of=sda2vbr count=1 bs=512
xxd sda2vbr
The dd command will save the VBR into file named sda2vbr. The xxd command will display the file from HEX to readable format.
The above need to be ran as root, one way is
ALT+F2--type in run box 'konsolesu'--type in 'root password'
hi
ok here are the returns
Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders, total 234441648 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x960ba245
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 63 20466809 10233373+ 27 Unknown
/dev/sda2 20466810 127732814 53633002+ 6 FAT16
/dev/sda3 127732815 187767719 30017452+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 * 202226220 234436544 16105162+ f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda5 202226283 206435249 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 206435313 218837429 6201058+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 218837493 234436544 7799526 83 Linux
2)and command 2 and 3 just returned no such file or directory.
this maybe because the entire file-system on C or sda2 is corrupt and cannot be read or mounted by anything.
Not sure what was done with Yast but it did not change the partition type, use fdisk to do so.
sudo /sbin/fdisk /dev/sda
commands when you are in fdisk you will use and there functions:
m–help menu
p–display partition table
t–change partition type
q–quit with out saving
w–write changes and exit
press **t**
*partition number=* **2** *partition type=* **07**
**p**
is the partition sda2 now NTFS:
If yes w
If no, q rerun fdisk
Try to mount sda2 or try rebooting.
Hope you can understand my instructions above.
The last 2 codes in pri post you must do as root.
hi
thanks to your terminal command sequence sda2 is in ntfs format however i still cannot read anything on sda2 and the file-system is still not entirely stable although it is read as ntfs if i attempt to assign it a mount point eg. /Windows/C it tells me that assigning a mount point to a nonexistent or unknown file-system is prohibited.
This is now what my hard drive looks like if it is of any help
Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x960ba245Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1274 10233373+ 27 Unknown
/dev/sda2 1275 7951 53633002+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 7952 11688 30017452+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 * 12589 14593 16105162+ f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda5 12589 12850 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 12851 13622 6201058+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 13623 14593 7799526 83 Linux
also drive D is both readable and writable and also contains a complete ubuntu installation yet even after the boot loader program scanned my partitions and created a new boot loader why can i not boot into ubuntu does that have anything to do with the fact that i installed ubuntu inside windows to drive D?
Need to check the Volume Boot Record (VBR) of sda2, primary and its backup. The VBR contains very important information on the partition and if wrong the OS can not find needed data to mount partition.
Method #1 to fix and likely fastest:
‘testdisk’ can be used, it will check the VBR’s and if the primary is bad but backup is good it will over write primary with backup. If they are both bad it will attempt to rebuild the VBR.
TestDisk - CGSecurity be sure to read the How-To first, you can google and find linux wiki on it use.
Method #2 ,only can be used if the partition was formatted by XP and has never been resized or moved. If the partition was resized/moved the backup VBR may be wrong and I can not rebuild.
From a root terminal, post output of xxd commands
dd if=sda2 of=sda2vbr bs=512 count=1
xxd sda2vbr
The above will display the primary sda2 VBR
dd if=sda of=sda2vbrbu bs=512 count=1 skip=127732814
xxd sda2vbrbu
Note:if=sda is correct where first code if=sda2.
The above will display the backup sda2 VBR. If the primary looks bad but backup looks good will over write primary with backup next, if they are the same (?).
You second problem , I do not think LINUX will run installed on a NTFS partition but could be wrong.
Thanks to the testdisc my sda2 drive has been successfully restored and i can even boot to both windows and ubuntu.
however i do not intend to continue using windows i much prefer suse, is it possible that i can shrink my windows c and d drives to the bare minimum capacity and transfer that memory to my suse partitions without causing a recurrence of the filesystem problem?
thanks again for the help fixing that mess 