Re: [Trisquel-users] Recovering old USB drive previously used with MacBook

2019-11-02 Thread xliang9550
This reminds me some weird partition table errors that I have encountered  
before.


I have some storage media that were once used as Live or installation disk,  
and they were created using dd command. Then later, I tried to install  
operating system to (not from) one of those media. I chose to re-create blank  
partition table and then created necessary partitions for system  
installation. But finally I got a message from Grub, saying duplicate  
partition tables were detected.


I tried to mount said media on different system environments. Under some  
circumstances the file manager and the partition editor showed the partitions  
before I tried to install operating system (i.e., the former partitions  
created using dd command, though the files were overwritten during the  
installation); but under some other, I saw the partitions after the system  
installation. I tried to repair the partition table but Gparted reported that  
everything was okay.


Finally, I decided to zero-fill the first several MiBs of the media to wipe  
out any possibly existing partition table information. Then the media was  
recognized as a blank disk and Grub could finally be correctly installed.


For you, if you don't need any data in the disk anymore, just zero-fill the  
first few MiBs and everything would be okay. Otherwise you may need to use  
tools like Gparted and Testdisk first to resolve any partition table problem.


Re: [Trisquel-users] Recovering old USB drive previously used with MacBook

2019-11-02 Thread calmstorm

It may be possible to zero it.

That would be the solution I would hope. 


Re: [Trisquel-users] Recovering old USB drive previously used with MacBook

2019-10-30 Thread xliang9550
I have searched packages.debian.org and packages.ubuntu.com. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS  
(on which Trisquel 8 is based) has Gparted 0.25; Ubuntu 18.04 LTS has version  
0.30; Ubuntu 18.10 to 19.10, as well as Debian stable/testing/sid have  
version 0.32; and latest version 1.0 is in Debian experimental.


I routinely use Debian sid but I also enabled experimental repository so I  
could test the latest version as early as possible. You can try to directly  
download packages named "gparted" and "gparted-common" form Debian stable  
repository, and see whether you have other dependencies up to date.


Re: [Trisquel-users] Recovering old USB drive previously used with MacBook

2019-10-29 Thread strypey
Thanks again for the suggestion. Does GParted have a deb repo I could add to  
my sources list to download a newer version onto Trisquel?


Re: [Trisquel-users] Recovering old USB drive previously used with MacBook

2019-10-28 Thread xliang9550
Maybe you need a newer version of Gparted and try to fix the problems (if  
any) with both partitions. I never use legacy versions of disk utilities  
(like those in Trisquel) for such critical jobs. I recently used latest  
Gparted to fix an NTFS volume which has been "sentenced to death" under  
Losedows and retrieved all data. (Though I had to go to Losedows to run  
"chkdsk -f" as the finishing touch to make the disk usable again.)


I sometimes use the official Gparted Live, based on Debian sid. Though it  
enables contrib and non-free repositories by default, it doesn't come with  
any non-free software (included in the ISO). So as soon as you boot into the  
Live environment, disable the contrib and non-free repositories and you  
should have a free/libre Live environment. apt and dpkg are pre-configured,  
so if you need additional disk utilities, just download and install them from  
Debian's main repository.


Re: [Trisquel-users] Recovering old USB drive previously used with MacBook

2019-10-28 Thread strypey
I notice that as well as the two data partitions on the drive there is a  
third item coming up in Caja called "WD SmartWare". I assume this is some  
kind of proprietary software launching off that first EFI boot partition.  
Could this be causing the problem? From memory, it didn't a few years ago  
when I was using the non-HFS partition to store GNU/Linux .ISOs and such.


Re: [Trisquel-users] Recovering old USB drive previously used with MacBook

2019-10-28 Thread strypey

Narcis Garcia:
> $ sudo fdisk -lu

Thanks. I did that. The output for the USB drive looks like this:

Disk /dev/sdb: 465.1 GiB, 499405291520 bytes, 975400960 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 82C2A588-FC49-423C-8EFE-A9B868CC4156

Device Start   End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdb1 40409639409600   200M EFI System
/dev/sdb2 409640 766095399 765685760 365.1G Apple HFS/HFS+
/dev/sdb3  766359552 975398911 209039360  99.7G Microsoft basic data

Caja still won't mount either of the data partitions. Is there a way I can  
check the integrity of the file systems from the command line?


I have installed hfsprogs. Will Caja use hfsprogs be default once I reboot,  
or is there a way I can instruct it to? hfsprogs is in the Trisquel repos and  
it keeps getting mentioned in a lot of the stuff I've found in web searches  
related to this problem, such as:

https://sdatic.com/mount-hfs-on-linux-with-command-line/


Re: [Trisquel-users] Recovering old USB drive previously used with MacBook

2019-10-28 Thread Narcis Garcia
$ sudo fdisk -lu


El 27/10/19 a les 13:46, stry...@disintermedia.net.nz ha escrit:
> I've got an old USB hard drive that was originally formatted as a backup
> drive for a MacBook. At some point, somebody carved off some space and
> made a second partition, accessible by default with GNU/Linux. The last
> time the owner used it, they tried to update the Time Machine backup
> located on it, but their MacBook file system was badly corrupted, the
> update didn't work, and in the end they replaced their MacBook drive
> with a larger SSD.
> 
> I'm now trying to check the contents of both partitions from within
> Trisquel, but the system is having a lot of trouble mounting even the
> partition that's normally accessible. GParted is struggling to scan
> devices with the drive inserted. When I tried to shut down Trisquel with
> the drive still plugged in, it spat out a bunch of unhappy looking error
> messages, so I unplugged the drive, and it shut down fine.
> 
> I did a web search looking for advice and found a bunch of articles
> about accessing Mac formatted drives from GNU/Linux:
> https://www.macworld.com/article/3003385/how-to-access-a-mac-drive-from-a-windows-or-linux-system.html
> 
> 
> https://askubuntu.com/questions/332315/how-to-read-and-write-hfs-journaled-external-hdd-in-ubuntu-without-access-to-os
> 
> 
> https://askubuntu.com/questions/100167/how-to-mount-hfs-drive-and-ignore-permissions
> 
> 
> But I suspect the drive itself is bricked. Is there any way to probe it
> and see what state it's in using command line tools?


[Trisquel-users] Recovering old USB drive previously used with MacBook

2019-10-27 Thread strypey
I've got an old USB hard drive that was originally formatted as a backup  
drive for a MacBook. At some point, somebody carved off some space and made a  
second partition, accessible by default with GNU/Linux. The last time the  
owner used it, they tried to update the Time Machine backup located on it,  
but their MacBook file system was badly corrupted, the update didn't work,  
and in the end they replaced their MacBook drive with a larger SSD.


I'm now trying to check the contents of both partitions from within Trisquel,  
but the system is having a lot of trouble mounting even the partition that's  
normally accessible. GParted is struggling to scan devices with the drive  
inserted. When I tried to shut down Trisquel with the drive still plugged in,  
it spat out a bunch of unhappy looking error messages, so I unplugged the  
drive, and it shut down fine.


I did a web search looking for advice and found a bunch of articles about  
accessing Mac formatted drives from GNU/Linux:

https://www.macworld.com/article/3003385/how-to-access-a-mac-drive-from-a-windows-or-linux-system.html

https://askubuntu.com/questions/332315/how-to-read-and-write-hfs-journaled-external-hdd-in-ubuntu-without-access-to-os

https://askubuntu.com/questions/100167/how-to-mount-hfs-drive-and-ignore-permissions

But I suspect the drive itself is bricked. Is there any way to probe it and  
see what state it's in using command line tools?