Ross wrote: > Hi Ralf, > ....... > > Ralf Mardorf wrote: > >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >> >> >> 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 think the message you are referring to means you need to reboot to > activate the changes made to the partition table. > >> 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". >> > Maybe because you didn't reboot the system as above? >
No :( the USB stick seems to be write protected. Seemingly some USB chips have such a problem that they can become write protected after partitioning by Linux or Windows, I read a lot of threads about this. Because it's new, I'll send it back to the supplier as broken if I can't solve it within the next days. But first I have to fix my IDE hard disk drive. I couldn't work on my computer yesterday. >> I run cfdisk again, this time without the -z option. Again I only got >> the free space message. >> >> I rebooted into Windows XP Pro. >> >> I only take access to the USB stick using different partition software >> and to nothing else. Before I tried to format and partition I looked for >> information. >> >> 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. >> > I think the 3 "strange" partitions were part of the windows-based > "security" for the drive. From linux fdisk -l will see them but you > won't be able to mount them as they are of a non-mountable type (it is a > few years now since I dealt with this problem and I can't remember the > specifics now). dd wiped out the partition table and hence the three > strange partitions. I think you will find that the windows software for > the USB drive is possibly refusing to access the drive because the > strange partitions have been removed. You may find that uninstalling the > security software will allow you to partition and format the drive under > windows again. > Should I try to dd the whole stick with zero and not only the MBR? I found no firmware for the 'Intenso Rainbow 8GB' USB stick, by the way, it also has no write protect switch, but 'write protected' is a message that only is displayed by Windows, not by Linux, anyhow Linux partitioning applications seems to be unable to write to the stick, I'm not sure if dd really does change anything, but it seems to be that there changed something. >> 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). >> > Possibly because the partition table got damaged by trying to re-write > it without rebooting (see my comments above). Okay, now I understand, I need to dd the stick and before I do anything else, I need to reboot. Even disconnecting and connecting isn't enough? > If that is the case then > dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb and repartitioning might work. I have also > found that sometimes gparted seems to write the partition table in such > a way that other partitioning software cannot access them, and can also > lead to the partitions being damaged. I would recommend using cfdisk to > create your partitions after running the dd command above, then use the > installer to format them. I am not sure whether this problem is actually > caused by gparted but I have experienced these problems many times and > gparted seems to be a common denominator. > Okay, but I used cfdisk after dd, but without rebooting. >> 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]" >> >> # gparted only detected one partition on my IDE hard disk drive, but >> there should be IDE #1 and #5 to #10. >> > ..... > >> 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. >> >> *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. >> > You could try using testdisk (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk) > to recover the missing logical partitions. I have found it very useful > for recovering from this sort of situation and I believe testdisk is > available through the debian packaging system. > > Hope this helps, > I'm not sure if the Suse recovery tool was testdisk, but before I try to restore the partition table by recovering a MBR backup, that I made before I installed Windows, but after the IDE was partitioned I will try anything else. If lost partitions are found I can check if the number and size of the partitions is correct, because I noted that in longhand, but I didn't not the sectors etc.. Thank you again, Ralf
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