I used to have a dual boot on my computer: Windows Vista and Open Suse. Windows died. I can’t start it. I’ll be reinstalling it, but before I do that, I’m hoping to recover some files that I saved while working on Windows. (They are some Word, PowerPoint, Excel files, and my music collection from iTunes). Some of that is saved on disk C (the same one that Windows is on.)
Considering my computer is working (I can use Open Suse), can I somehow access and save those files?
Thank you!
Boot openSUSE
Do you not already have access to the windows file system?
Open a terminal and post the result of this:
cat /etc/fstab
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part7 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part8 /home ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part1 /windows/C ntfs-3g users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=pl_PL.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part2 /windows/D ntfs-3g users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=pl_PL.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part3 /windows/E ntfs-3g users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=pl_PL.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part5 /windows/F ntfs-3g users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=pl_PL.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part6 swap swap defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
So you can see all your windows partitions are listed there. So if you navigate to to your home folder and go up 2 levels you should see the windows folder and inside there 4 folders: C, D, E, F
Are you using gnome or KDE
I have no idea how to do that. Could you point me to something that would show me how to do that?
I’m using Gnome.
Open Nautilus from the menu or your home folder from the desktop
press the up arrow 2 x
Download this to see it on my computer
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10573557/gnome%20navigate-win.mpeg
When I open my home folder and press “up” twice I get a bunch of folders including “Windows” folder. When I open the Windows folder, I get “C” “D” “E” “F”, and when I open one of those, nothing shows up (like if they were empty). Also, when I click into “C”,“D”,“E”,“F” on the left hand panel I get this message “Unable to mount the selected volume.”
OK
We need to edit fstab
Open a terminal and paste this with your mouse
kdesu kwrite /etc/fstab
Now edit the file to this. Carefully.
I’ll copy the contents here exactly, so you can delete everything and paste this:
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part7 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part8 /home ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part1 /windows/C ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part2 /windows/D ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part3 /windows/E ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part5 /windows/F ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part6 swap swap defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
When done save and reboot.
Be careful because you can now read/write to all those windows partitions.
On 2010-09-20 06:36, ka mik wrote:
>
> caf4926;2225180 Wrote:
>> So you can see all your windows partitions are listed there. So if you
>> navigate to to your home folder and go up 2 levels you should see the
>> windows folder and inside there 4 folders: C, D, E, F
>>
>> Are you using gnome or KDE
>
> I have no idea how to do that. Could you point me to something that
> would show me how to do that?
>
> I’m using Gnome.
No idea? You just have to navigate folders, same thing as in windows.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” GM (Minas Tirith))
On 2010-09-20 14:36, ka mik wrote:
>
> caf4926;2225201 Wrote:
>> Open Nautilus from the menu or your home folder from the desktop
>> press the up arrow 2 x
>>
>> Download this to see it on my computer
>> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10573557/gnome%20navigate-win.mpeg
>
> When I open my home folder and press “up” twice I get a bunch of
> folders including “Windows” folder. When I open the Windows folder, I
> get “C” “D” “E” “F”, and when I open one of those, nothing shows up
> (like if they were empty). Also, when I click into “C”,“D”,“E”,“F” on
> the left hand panel I get this message “Unable to mount the selected
> volume.”
Open a terminal. Do:
su -
mount /windows/C
It will probably complain with an error: paste it here.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” GM (Elessar))
here’s what I get:
Password:
linux-urwq:~ # mount /windows/C
$LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0, 0)
Failed to mount ‘/dev/sda1’:
Mount is denied because NTFS is marked to be in use. Choose one action:
Choice 1: If you have Windows then disconnect the external devices by
clicking on the ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ icon in the Windows
taskbar then shutdown Windows cleanly.
Choice 2: If you don’t have Windows then you can use the ‘force’ option for
your own responsibility. For example type on the command line:
mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /windows/C -o force
Or add the option to the relevant row in the /etc/fstab file:
/dev/sda1 /windows/C ntfs-3g defaults,force 0 0
When I enter: kdesu kwrite /etc/fstab
I get this error:
kdesu: command not found
Perhaps you are using Gnome so do
gnomesu gedit /etc/fstab
and edit the file as previously shown
Now I check more carefully. Sorry. You are using Gnome. Now it will work…
I did that, saved, and rebooted. When I go to my home, and go up two levels, I still don’t see anything in the C, D, E, F folders. Is there anything else I need to do?
Thank you for all your help so far!
Post result of
cat /etc/fstab
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part7 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part8 /home ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part1 /windows/C ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part2 /windows/D ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part3 /windows/E ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part5 /windows/F ntfs-3g defaults 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1600BEVS-_WD-WXEX06049037-part6 swap swap defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
debugfs /sys/kernel/debug debugfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
But you can boot in to windows OK?
Assuming windows boots fine, so the file system must be there.
The only other things to check are
In the file you edited /etc/fstab
There should be a empty line at the bottom of all the text.
Also if you post the following so I can check some stuff:
From a terminal post result of:
ls /windows/C
Also in a terminal, become su -
and do:
fdisk -l
post result
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h191KrDK-I0
linux-urwq:~ # mount /windows/C
$LogFile indicates unclean shutdown (0, 0)
Failed to mount ‘/dev/sda1’:
Mount is denied because NTFS is marked to be in use. Choose one action:
You may want to boot from a windows install or boot disk and run the windows command to do a file system check on each of the windows partitions.
From your posts, I assume windows is not booting.