Can't get into my hard drive

[Harry Kuhman]

When you mention chkdsk, would it be possible to run it on the disk volume from a virtual machine running Windows under Linux?

It should not be. The virtual machine is the virtual machine, and logically isolated from the rest of the real physical computer that the hard disk would be attached to.

[Capricorny]

When you mention chkdsk, would it be possible to run it on the disk volume from a virtual machine running Windows under Linux?

It should not be. The virtual machine is the virtual machine, and logically isolated from the rest of the real physical computer that the hard disk would be attached to.

That depends on the mounting possibilities. With enough privileges, we may run Unix fsck on externally mounted file systems, and if chkdsk works in a similar manner, it could be possible to use it without that constituting a security hole.

[1616e]

I followed woodsmoke's USB test and the 6.2 disk saw the usb immediately. whew, big relief. I thought I got a non functional disk. Then I took OERjan's instructions and it all worked. Using fdisk it listed the sda1 and that it is NTFS it even gave the disk capacity and number of heads on the HD. When I tried to mount it it read that there is no NTFS signature. In detail it read:
NTFS signature missing
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1' : Invalid Argument
The device '/dev/sda1' doesn't have a valid NTFS.

Then it advises that maybe wrong device was selected. But on fdisk it shows that it sees sda.
I'll try the command again using just /sda. Will post more. Thanks guys you're the best. I couldn't have gotten this far without you. Hope the /sda works. Will post more.

[Capricorny]

I followed woodsmoke's USB test and the 6.2 disk saw the usb immediately. whew, big relief. I thought I got a non functional disk. Then I took OERjan's instructions and it all worked. Using fdisk it listed the sda1 and that it is NTFS it even gave the disk capacity and number of heads on the HD. When I tried to mount it it read that there is no NTFS signature. In detail it read:
NTFS signature missing
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1' : Invalid Argument
The device '/dev/sda1' doesn't have a valid NTFS.

Then it advises that maybe wrong device was selected. But on fdisk it shows that it sees sda.
I'll try the command again using just /sda. Will post more. Thanks guys you're the best. I couldn't have gotten this far without you. Hope the /sda works. Will post more.

Good work! But I doubt trying /dev/sda as mount will help you much.
You might try around with different mount options, like sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /media/sda1 -o ro
The message you got may indicate that this file system is seriously messed up. I'm a bit unsure if trying to mount it rw would help - that's usually considered a bit dangerous.
And, unfortunately, I don't think we have good Linux tools for NTFS recovery.

I would have tried to take the disk out, mount it in an external USB disk cabinet, and try to access it from another Windows machine. Perhaps running chkdsk on it from that.

As this is a common problem, it's fine if others reading this have some tips or tricks.

[krishna.murphy]

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30520 I don't know if you'll see that URL, but I justed posted a message on another Hardware question, regarding Hiren's Boot CD - if Knoppix isn't doing what you need, give it a try.

Krishna

I followed woodsmoke's USB test and the 6.2 disk saw the usb immediately. whew, big relief. I thought I got a non functional disk. Then I took OERjan's instructions and it all worked. Using fdisk it listed the sda1 and that it is NTFS it even gave the disk capacity and number of heads on the HD. When I tried to mount it it read that there is no NTFS signature. In detail it read:
NTFS signature missing
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1' : Invalid Argument
The device '/dev/sda1' doesn't have a valid NTFS.

Then it advises that maybe wrong device was selected. But on fdisk it shows that it sees sda.
I'll try the command again using just /sda. Will post more. Thanks guys you're the best. I couldn't have gotten this far without you. Hope the /sda works. Will post more.

Good work! But I doubt trying /dev/sda as mount will help you much.
You might try around with different mount options, like sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /media/sda1 -o ro
The message you got may indicate that this file system is seriously messed up. I'm a bit unsure if trying to mount it rw would help - that's usually considered a bit dangerous.
And, unfortunately, I don't think we have good Linux tools for NTFS recovery.

I would have tried to take the disk out, mount it in an external USB disk cabinet, and try to access it from another Windows machine. Perhaps running chkdsk on it from that.

As this is a common problem, it's fine if others reading this have some tips or tricks.