Partitioning Help with gparted

[hank22077]

fdisk -l output:

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000588f5

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 141 1126400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 141 8555 67584000 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 8555 11390 22776271+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 11390 19458 64801793 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 13782 13922 1126400 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 13922 19225 42599424 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 19225 19458 1865728 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda8 11390 13782 19208192 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

[oldfred]

Did you change NTFS partitions around somehow?

Your original screenshot showed data in sda1 & sda3, but now it shows no data? and no errors on mounting.

[hank22077]

Did you change NTFS partitions around somehow?

Your original screenshot showed data in sda1 & sda3, but now it shows no data? and no errors on mounting.

Honestly, I dont know what happened. Windows was messed up.
I was gonna back up all my wifes files to put on her new laptop, and get rid of it all. Her windows pw kept gettin screwed up n we'd have to reset it through the admin account. We couldnt do any backups through the system; I was manually copying her files and saving them elsewhere. The BIOS and Setup (F2 & F10) have a password neither of us set or know.
My Ubuntu is all that seems to work on this thing...
The Vista disk doesnt even load from the drive, even though 'boot from disk' is default. Yet, I can boot other disks.

[Vaphell]

damn, did you expand linux partition at the expense of windows partitions? in general that's not a good idea to play with windows partitions in gparted. Afaik Vista and W7 are especially vulnerable to screwups

http://www.thpc.info/how/use_gparted...partition.html

Unfortunately, some users will find that Windows 7 or Vista fails to boot after using GParted to resize a partition. This is especially true if the 'Round to Cylinders' option is left ticked - enabled is the default setting and should be changed to disabled before Resizing with GParted with Windows 7 or Vista.

It's best to use windows tools to free space and then use gparted to partition that space for linux.

10GB PQSERVICE which most likely held recovery tools allowing to restore the machine to out-of-factory state is completely broken.

[hank22077]

damn, did you expand linux partition at the expense of windows partitions? in general that's not a good idea to play with windows partitions in gparted. Afaik Vista and W7 are especially vulnerable to screwups

http://www.thpc.info/how/use_gparted...partition.html

It's best to use windows tools to free space and then use gparted to partition that space for linux.

10GB PQSERVICE which most likely held recovery tools allowing to restore the machine to out-of-factory state is completely broken.

No, I steered clear of the windows partitions...

[oldfred]

With all the partition changes it may make it more difficult but testdisk can recover old partition tables. You may lose new entries as whatever you recover cannot overlap existing partitions. If testdisk does not work and you have data you really want to recover stop using drive. Part of testdisk is photorec. But it is a long complicated process as it just scans drive for anything that looks like a file. It cannot recover file names, but can recover based on type of file and then its extension.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
Instructions
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Menu_Analyse
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestD..._file_for_NTFS

Testdisk & photorec
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/...rdeletedfiles/
http://ubuntu4beginners.blogspot.com...otorec-in.html
Use scripts to help sort and rename files:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/After_Using_PhotoRec
use flac tags to rename files
http://lglinux.blogspot.com/2008/10/...ame-files.html
http://system-tricks.com/index.php/d...overy-results/
Best GUI Indexing/Search Tool for Local Files?
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1739701

Photorec can take a very long time to scan a drive and you have to have room on anther drive to copy found data to. Then you have the task of trying to see if the recovered files are really what you want.

I had saved a text file many times. It found all the old saved copies or parts there of. I was never sure I had last saved copy but between backup that was too old and bits from files I recovered most of those text files.

[hank22077]

Thanks, oldfred

[hank22077]

I marked this as solved, cuz the initial issue was.
However, even though most of us dislike windows,
I could still use advice on the Vista "screw up(?)"

I have backup files and a restore disk.
Nothing really seems to work.

I dont really care to have or use Windows, but it would be nice to make certain I have everything restored for my wifes files to be put on her new laptop.

Like I said, I have 'most' files backed up.
Just needa be sure.

Any additional advice...other than payin Microsoft? ( )

Thanks

[oldfred]

As Vaphell mentioned before, it is best to use Window to resize itself if Vista or 7. Only use gparted to create or resize Linux partitions. The Vendor recovery often wants the entire drive as it was when purchased and may not work with the Linux partitions still there. It just recreates Vista system.

The vendor recovery DVDs are just an image of your drive as purchased. If you have housecleaned a lot of cruft normally included, run many updates with many reboots, and added software you may want a full back up.
Backup windows before install - post by Mark Phelps
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1626990
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp
Another suggestion by srs5694
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

[hank22077]

Ok.
Thanks again, oldfred