Not mounting my hard disk

[tallyp]

My computer crashed in windows and wont load anything, I get a message saying "disk boot failure." Using the live CD I have managed to log in and back up my "G" drive. I can't get onto my c drive at all. It is there, it knows what size it is but it wont mount.

It said "I could not determine the filesytem type and none was specified". I also tried with Gnome 2.12 and in that it says it doesn't recognise the partitions. I have ordered a new computer, but would like to back up a few files. I've restarted it but get the same message.

Anyone have any ideas. I have done a quick search but couldn't find the answer.

[marhleet]

sounds like the boot partition is screwed
either power failure when disk writing, or disk failure
or partial failure on the well/often used part of the drive

you might need a partition recovery to sort the partition table out before it will mount/read properly

troubles , ....
you can't ghost the drive as the partition won't read so no backup
if the drive is failing, attempts to read it might make it fail more so possible failure of whole drive before backup
you should be able to ghost the other readable partitions, but drive may fail during
depends on what failed and why
and how bad it is

================
was disk boot failure a bios message ?
does it try to load windows and fail
or not do any windows part at all
mainly, can it do safe mode ?

[tallyp]

Thanks for prompt reply. It wont go into windows safe mode so pretty bad. It also says there is a problem with the CPU fan and will shut down unless I press F2. The fan is fine as I can leave it running in knoppix for several hours and burn DVD's etc etc.

For a while BIOS wasn't recognising my C drive, but I fiddled with the cable inside and it does now. Though it seems like G has become the master C the slave.

Can you reccomend any partition recovery programs, seems like it may be the best option!

[marhleet]

fan not recognised, ouch. bios problem ?
possibly internals of fan where the three wire isn't three wiring anymore (speed sensor)

if bios won't see the drive, back to drive failure
backup asap and then fingers crossed

me mum uses partition magic, she can re-size and change windows partitions
I've used r-studio to recover data from a drive.
if you fdisk and delete all partitions, r-studio can scan the drive and see all the directory and file data that hasn't been actually physically overwritten and make a very good guess as to what goes where
again, if the drive is failing, it won't find much before the drive dies.

sounds like a lovely recovery project, bring it around to myhouse in Sydney and I'll look ;-)

[tallyp]

I'm glad someone appreciates my computer misery! I just found out about Partition Logic which is a free download similar to the magic one you mentioned your Mum uses. I'll give it ago first. Cheers for the help.


I've just tried it and it's classing my C: drive as an empty space, other than creating new partitions there isn't a lot of choice. But I'm guessing doing that will just erase my files anyway as then I'd have to format it!

[TopFarmer]

I would try running TESTDISK (google it), there is a good how to use at site.
You can run testdisk after booting with a Win98 boot floppy or the program does come with the the Knoppix cd. The program checks to make sure the Partition Table and Volume Boot Record (first sectors on all partitions) agree with each other along with a few other needed tests.

[OErjan]

try changiong the battery of the bios, it has happened to me.

[jim1944]

If all else fails, one thing you might try is a little utility that PowerQuest (bought out by Symantec) used to provide as a free download called ptedit. It allows you to directly edit your partition table. If your problem is that the partition table entry for your Windows partition is corrupted, then you might be able to recover it by fixing it with this.

It is still available for download at ftp://ftp.norton.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities. There are two versions: ptedit and ptedit32. Ptedit32 runs in Windows, the other in DOS.

CAUTION: editing a partition table without knowing what you are doing can really screw up your hard drive. You'll have to do some research on hard drive partitioning to be able to safely use this utility. But I was once able to recover a lost partition by doing just that several years ago.

Jim

[marhleet]

try changing the battery of the bios, it has happened to me.

the battery is only for storing settings in bios and keeping them after power off
if the battery wasn't there the computer would still start up,
with the date set at either 1970 or 1980 i think these days
and any settings would be lost when it went off.

[tallyp]

I did change the BIOS battery to see if it would sort the fan error, but it didn't.

I've tried running the testdisk thing but an error message comes up, something about shared libary. I will try the other things when I get time, cheers for the help.