hard disk problem no partitions showing

[kirkface8]

hey recoently i noticed that my windows partition had an ! in gparted. i ran the windows 7 recovery cd. this failed halfway through.

today i notice that gparted is not showing any partitions and my music partition is not visible in nautilus. nor can i mount my 153gb


take notice of the screenshot below thats the error i get attempting to mount the ntfs 153gb windows partition.

thanks

[ephexeve]

I had the same problem, I found out I had a NTFS filesystem.

[kirkface8]

its been working for 4 months now though.

[kirkface8]

am i able to fix this within ubuntu?

[coffeecat]

Your first screenshot is describing one problem very clearly: the NTFS filesystem on your Windows C: drive is damaged. The fact that Gparted was showing a ! means that this may have been so before you ran the failed repair from the repair disc. You cannot repair this from Ubuntu. However, before you attempt to repair your Windows C....

The second screenshot with Gparted showing 'unallocated' suggests that the partition table may be damaged. Perhaps the Windows repair disc did this, perhaps not. You need to see whether this is so before doing anything else.

Boot up Ubuntu.* Open a terminal and post the output of:

sudo fdisk -lu

Please post this between [code] and [/code] tags for legibility. This will tell us if there is partition table corruption.

EDIT: I'm assuming you can still boot Ubuntu despite these problems. If not, use the live CD.

[kirkface8]

Your first screenshot is describing one problem very clearly: the NTFS filesystem on your Windows C: drive is damaged. The fact that Gparted was showing a ! means that this may have been so before you ran the failed repair from the repair disc. You cannot repair this from Ubuntu. However, before you attempt to repair your Windows C....

The second screenshot with Gparted showing 'unallocated' suggests that the partition table may be damaged. Perhaps the Windows repair disc did this, perhaps not. You need to see whether this is so before doing anything else.

Boot up Ubuntu.* Open a terminal and post the output of:

sudo fdisk -lu

Please post this between [code] and [/code] tags for legibility. This will tell us if there is partition table corruption.

EDIT: I'm assuming you can still boot Ubuntu despite these problems. If not, use the live CD.

fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 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
Disk identifier: 0xd58e9730

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1            2048    78125055    39061504   83  Linux
/dev/sdb2        78127102   234375167    78124033    5  Extended
/dev/sdb3       234375168   234579967      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb4       234579968   532977663   149198848    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb5       532977664   625141759    46082048    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb6       205080576   234375167    14647296   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

[coffeecat]

Something is seriously wrong with your partition table:

fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 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
Disk identifier: 0xd58e9730

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1            2048    78125055    39061504   83  Linux
/dev/sdb2        78127102   234375167    78124033    5  Extended
/dev/sdb3       234375168   234579967      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb4       234579968   532977663   149198848    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb5       532977664   625141759    46082048    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb6       205080576   234375167    14647296   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Partitions sdb5 and sdb6 should, by definition, be logical partitions because their numbers are 5 and above. Logical partitions are contained within an extended partition, in your case sdb2. But look at the numbers. sdb6 is within sdb2. So far, so good. But sdb5 is the other side of the primaries sdb3 and sdb4. You can't have a split extended partition like that. And you can't convert sdb5 to a primary because that would give you four primaries and one extended, which is illegal. Actually, it's impossible - you couldn't edit the partition table to effect this.

At the moment I have no idea how to repair this. Normally, you would edit the partition table to deal with partition table corruption but I can see no way of doing this that is legal or, indeed, possible. In case I have missed something I'll call up some other opinions. In the meantime, how much do you understand about partitions: primary, extended and logicals? Can you follow the paragraph above?

[kirkface8]

Something is seriously wrong with your partition table:



Partitions sdb5 and sdb6 should, by definition, be logical partitions because their numbers are 5 and above. Logical partitions are contained within an extended partition, in your case sdb2. But look at the numbers. sdb6 is within sdb2. So far, so good. But sdb5 is the other side of the primaries sdb3 and sdb4. You can't have a split extended partition like that. And you can't convert sdb5 to a primary because that would give you four primaries and one extended, which is illegal. Actually, it's impossible - you couldn't edit the partition table to effect this.

At the moment I have no idea how to repair this. Normally, you would edit the partition table to deal with partition table corruption but I can see no way of doing this that is legal or, indeed, possible. In case I have missed something I'll call up some other opinions. In the meantime, how much do you understand about partitions: primary, extended and logicals? Can you follow the paragraph above?

I understand most of the above. I understand primary, extended not so much logical. My partitions where working fine except for the windows one until i ran the windows recovery CD. This must have been what caused the problems. God i hate windows.
But thanks i'm really confused about what has happened i'm sure i've copied and pasted this right. Should i open a new thread or what? Below is a screenshot of disk utility which shows strange occurrences as well.

Thanks

[coffeecat]

Should i open a new thread or what?

I'd keep this one going. You've already posted the relevant information and you'd just have to repost it in a new thread.

Below is a screenshot of disk utility which shows strange occurrences as well.

I'm not surprised. The backend for Gparted is parted which is known to throw in the towel when confronted with certain inconsistencies in a damaged partition table. I don't know what the backend to Disk Utility is, but it's not going to tell us anything more than fdisk. fdisk reads and displays partition table information, so we've got enough reliable information to be going on with.

I've had a reply from one of my contacts who doesn't find fault with my analysis. I'll pm someone else now, an expert in these matters, but he lives in another time zone from both you and so may not be around for some time. In the meantime, if the worst came to the worst, would you be prepared to do a complete re-install? I hate to suggest this, but it's useful to know how far someone with a complex problem like this is prepared to go before re-installing. You mentioned a Music partition. Is this what is showing as sdb5 in fdisk?

[kirkface8]

I'd keep this one going. You've already posted the relevant information and you'd just have to repost it in a new thread.



I'm not surprised. The backend for Gparted is parted which is known to throw in the towel when confronted with certain inconsistencies in a damaged partition table. I don't know what the backend to Disk Utility is, but it's not going to tell us anything more than fdisk. fdisk reads and displays partition table information, so we've got enough reliable information to be going on with.

I've had a reply from one of my contacts who doesn't find fault with my analysis. I'll pm someone else now, an expert in these matters, but he lives in another time zone from both you and so may not be around for some time. In the meantime, if the worst came to the worst, would you be prepared to do a complete re-install? I hate to suggest this, but it's useful to know how far someone with a complex problem like this is prepared to go before re-installing. You mentioned a Music partition. Is this what is showing as sdb5 in fdisk?

thanks. the thing is ubuntu is working perfectly no errors at all. by reinstall i assume u mean starting the hard disk from scratch. i'm happy to if theres no other fixes and would love to back up my music.

i'm not sure if its sdb5

but i had a 45gb ntfs music partition
a 60gb ntfs data partition
and a 153gb ntfs windows partition (which i have no care for at this point of time)

i don't believe i made a swap partition due to using small percentages of my ram.
my drive is advertised as a 320gb drive if that helps.

i should be awake for another 4 hours and will be checking this thread every 10 minutes.

thanks