Where are my drive partitions?

[oldfred]

Several years ago I had XP working from sda1. Then when working on my new sdc drive, gparted would stall, and only after about 10 minutes show only sdb & sdc. I ended up running chkdsk on sda1. XP booted faster and gparted worked again. It seems now the NTFS drivers do show the partitions but may show errors now in gparted. I think it is the same for FAT32.

Part of the reason FAT32 is faster is that it has no journal, so recovery takes longer and is less likely in case of partition issues, particularly power failure or abnormal shutdowns. FAT32 also has a maximum file size of 4GB.

[Engineeringtech]

Several years ago I had XP working from sda1. Then when working on my new sdc drive, gparted would stall, and only after about 10 minutes show only sdb & sdc. I ended up running chkdsk on sda1. XP booted faster and gparted worked again. It seems now the NTFS drivers do show the partitions but may show errors now in gparted. I think it is the same for FAT32.

Part of the reason FAT32 is faster is that it has no journal, so recovery takes longer and is less likely in case of partition issues, particularly power failure or abnormal shutdowns. FAT32 also has a maximum file size of 4GB.

Thanks Oldfred. I will try running chkdsk on SDA1. Do you think that once I do this, I will again see partitions in the Launcher or Nautilus?

JC

[oldfred]

Do not know.

But chkdsk flags or hibernation flags are some of the more common reasons for Linux not mounting a Windows formatted partition. That is to prevent damage that then could not be fixed by chkdsk.

[Engineeringtech]

Do not know.

But chkdsk flags or hibernation flags are some of the more common reasons for Linux not mounting a Windows formatted partition. That is to prevent damage that then could not be fixed by chkdsk.

Oldfred,

What's a chkdsk or hibernation flag? Is there a way to remove them? And after you remove the flag, how do you direct Linux to examine the partitions and mount the ones which can be mounted?

[oldfred]

If a partition needs chkdsk, then a flag is set. Linux will not open it to prevent additional damage. When the flag is set, Windows should run chkdsk automatically but may not. Then you have to run it manually.

The same with hibernation. If Linux sees the hibernation flag it should not write to it, but we have seen several posts where users write into a hibernated file system and corrupt it. Again chkdsk is required.

But Windows chkdsk may not alway resolve all issues, so good backups are always the best solution. And the same applies to Linux formatted partitions also.

[BertN45]

Oldfred,

What's a chkdsk or hibernation flag? Is there a way to remove them? And after you remove the flag, how do you direct Linux to examine the partitions and mount the ones which can be mounted?

Chkdsk flag you can remove by running chkdsk in Windows or Dos. The hibernate flag you could remove by shutting Windows down instead of hybernating it. If you always hybernate windows, try shutting it down.

If you were using hibernate for Windows (default behavior since Vista), the newer versions of Ubuntu/Linux kernel refuse to mount the involved windows partition(s). See http://askubuntu.com/questions/14590...to-hibernation

In that case you are right, you don't see the FAT partitions by design to avoid potential corruption

[Elmer Fudd]

For what it's worth..
Found my partions and external devices by opening Nautilus and selecting the "GO" menu item and then "Computer". Everthing then showed up in the right panel. I miss the Places menu as well.

Now Running:
Sony F-series Laptop
Release 12.04 32-bit
Kernel 3.2.0-35 gen-pae
GNOME 3.4.2

[Engineeringtech]

For what it's worth..
Found my partions and external devices by opening Nautilus and selecting the "GO" menu item and then "Computer". Everthing then showed up in the right panel. I miss the Places menu as well.

Now Running:
Sony F-series Laptop
Release 12.04 32-bit
Kernel 3.2.0-35 gen-pae
GNOME 3.4.2

THANK YOU! Your post finally told me how to locate my drive partitions. I don't know why the people who created Ubuntu chose to hide them from users, or why other people in this forum couldn't help me find them. I've been following instructions about editing FSTAB, and running CHKDSK from Windows, and nothing has worked.

Unfortunately, this great advice has not resolved the issues with my external drives (USB and Firewire) or optical drives. (Inaccessible) So I will mark this thread solved, and follow through with my intent to leave Ubuntu. (I had just announced this in another thread.)

I thank everyone who helped me, or tried to help me.

[BertN45]

Well probably you also could find them by selecting View -> Sidebar -> Places and there should also your CD/DVD and USB sticks/disks appear, if they are used.

By the way there is a program ubuntu-tweak that allows you to have those things displayed at the desktop again.