-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Ralf Mardorf wrote: > Hi :) > > First I tried to "enable" my USB stick. You can skip what I did before I > got a serious problem with one of my hard disk drives. > Marks to skip from/to: --- > --- > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > You might skip the text from here ... > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > I thought the USB stick wasn't auto-mounted, because there was no icon > on the desktop after the 64 Studio 2.1 session started, but it was > recognized by gparted and cfdisk, anyhow I tried to take access to the > stick by dd, gparted and cfdisk, with and without disconnecting and > connecting it again. > > I disconnected the USB stick again, waited around 30 seconds and > connected it again. It lasted around 10 seconds until the USB stick's > LED stopped flashing and stayed giving light. I waited more then a > minute and again tried some commands. > > 64studio:/home/spinymouse# mount -t vfat -o rw,umask=0000 /dev/sdb1 > /home/spinymouse/Desktop/usb-stick > mount: special device /dev/sdb1 does not exist > > 64studio:/home/spinymouse# cfdisk -z /dev/sdb > > Disk has been changed. > > WARNING: If you have created or modified any > DOS 6.x partitions, please see the cfdisk manual > page for additional information. > > The messages of cfdisk: > > "cfdisk 2.12r > Disk Drive: /dev/sdb > Size: 8086618112 bytes, 8086 MB > Heads: 249 Sectors per Track: 62 Cylinders: 1023 > Name > Flags > Part Type Pri/Log > FS Type Free Space > [Label] > Size (MB) 8086.06 > > I tried to partition it. > > Name sdb1 > Flags Boot > Part Type Primary > FS Type W95 FAT32 > [Label] > Size (MB) 8086.06 > > Writing partition table to disk... > > Wrote partition table to disk > Toggle bootable flag of the current partition" > > I quit cfdisk by pressing q. > > I've done this before, but before I got an error message that differs > from other messages, but I can't remember it. It was something like > "Wrote partition table to disk ... couldn't re-read. I started to note > everything and not only to note nearly everything. Gparted before > running the latest cfdisk informed about "Unable to open /dev/sdb - > unrecognized label". > You partitioned the drive, but you have not yet formatted the partition. There is currently no file system on /dev/sdb1 yet.
- From Linux: sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1 - From Windows: Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> ** note that you need to be an administrator to do this. ** Alternatively you could run Computer Management with admin credentials in case you are properly using Windows. runas /noprofile /user:mydomain\myadminusername "mmc %SystemRoot%\system32\compmgmt.msc /s" For home users mydomain = computer name In either case, right click on the USB drive (it won't have a drive letter yet because there is no file system, yet) and click format. Regardless of the OS you rebuild the USB key on, ** DOUBLE CHECK THAT YOU ARE MODIFYING THE CORRECT DEVICE ** This is really important. There is no garuntee that the USB stick will always be /dev/sdb or the same drive letter in Windows. On Linux you can check by either: a) looking in /dev/disk/by-id. Eg. "ls -l /dev/disk/by-id" or b) sudo parted /dev/sdb print <snip> > The USB stick was active. There was one partition for the stick, > yesterday there were 3 "strange" partitions (seen by Windows, not by > Linux), maybe something changed by dd or any other Linux command. Trying > to format and partition by Windows failed with the error that the USB > stick is write protected. You may also get that error if you do not have sufficient privledges. See above for a possible solution. > > All hard disk drives still were okay. > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > ... to here > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > I rebooted into the 64 Studio 3.0-beta3 installer DVD. > > I ONLY watched the installer's partition tool and quit "Write changes to > disk?" with "<No>". I wasn't tired or drunken and note each step I did > in longhand. I was focused to each step I did. > > I choose "Execute a shell", there was no folder /target. > > I rebooted into the BIOS. USB 2.0 was enabled. I quit the BIOS without > saving and turned of the computer and turned of the power for the power > supply. I connected the USB stick to another USB slot and disconnected > the cables of my 2 hard disk drives, an IDE and a SATA. > > I turned everything on and booted the 3.0-beta3 install DVD again. > > This time I tried to format the USB stick by different options, but it > didn't worked. I executed a shell again, this time there was a folder > /target, but it was empty, yesterday after the install it wasn't empty > (even if I couldn't access the stick). > > After "Abort the installation" and turning of the power again, I > connected the cables to the hard disk drives. > > I booted 64 Studio 2.1 (amd64, Etch) from the SATA hard disk drive. GRUB > is on the IDE drive. I need to continue the start up by Ctrl+D, because > a file system failed. When the session had started I $ cat > /var/log/fsck/checkfs "[snip] fsck.ext3: Unable to resolve > 'LABEL="ide_copy"' [snip] fsck died with exit status 8 [snip]" I have not seen that error before. It is possible that something is corrupt with partition label sudo e2label /dev/<IDE Device>1 will print the current partition label sudo tune2fs -L <new label> /dev/<IDE Device>1 will change the label. > > # gparted only detected one partition on my IDE hard disk drive, but > there should be IDE #1 and #5 to #10. > sudo parted /dev/<IDE Device> print > At this point I get tired, but I still wasn't drunken. To be on the safe > side I only watched what a Suse 11.1 DVD recovery tool is able to do, > without executing any recovery. It didn't found the wanted partitions. > The latest backuped MBRs I found were from 2009-01-04, before I did the > XP install. It might be, that this MBRs are fine to recover the > seemingly broken MBR, but it also might be, that I changed the > partitions before I installed XP and that I don't have an actual MBR > backup, I need to read some notes. I've got relative actual True Image > backups for the first partition of the IDE hard disk drive, but I don't > know if the MBR is within these backups. I even don't know if the MBR is > broken or something else. Multiboot with multiple drives can be ugly. > > The first partition of the IDE is Windows XP Pro, I didn't try to boot > it, but I did try to boot some Linux from the IDE and booting failed > with the GRUB error 22 "No such partition". I still can boot Linux by > GRUB from the IDE, that are on the SATA. The SATA seems to be fine. > It is possible that the USB key is now in the position that the BIOS expects the IDE drive to be in. Try it again without the USB drive being connected. > *Any hints how to recover the partitions* and if it's safe to backup the > broken IDE drive *are welcome*. I'm now to tired to google, read and > risk anything, the only thing I'll try to do now, is to take a look, if > the Suse recovery tools can find any Linux on the IDE drive, but I won't > boot or try to repair them until I'm full focused again. > testdisk is sometimes pretty good at this. > I still have a BAC of 0 per cent, but I guess I will change this after I > looked one more time to the Suse recovery tools. > > It's not clear if there's a bug for my 3.0-beta3 install DVD or a > hardware problem with my computer, or both, but anything else seems to > be hardly probable. > I am not clear on what exactly you were doing with 3.0-beta install DVD, were you simply trying to install on the USB device? With your dual hard drive setup I would be very careful. You can do a lot of damage with very little effort and end up losing a lot of data. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkmza4gACgkQwRXgH3rKGfOAQgCdEUdHhSUMA57Wa/gOiKbWzOsZ rWEAmwVtZJBNOGCU2E69kIiFpYXX20Fv =+INn -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ 64studio-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.64studio.com/mailman/listinfo/64studio-users
