Broken partitions, recovering data from dying laptop disk
Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 5:26 pm
I've encountered(or should I say created) a biiig problem. After forcing windows shutdown by pressing power, I've loaded linux and waited until it loaded. It popped up some problem which I don't really remember(but i think it requested to pres a or m key). I've pressed those keys but computer did not responded, so I was forced to turn it off using power. Next time errors with grub started to appear.
"Error: Unknown filesystem" at first
Later randomly things like mentioned unknown file system or
"Error: hd0 out of disk"
"Error: Unknown filesystem"
"Error: No such device"
"Error: No such partition grub rescue>"
Live cd used to load slowly, trying to load linux mint loaded first at grey screen which switched to white box on black background. Box was in top left part of screen. And later was /sbin/blkid/ was killed. Memory test caused laptop to restart, comptability mode worked same way, loading grub twice loaded grub options, but it failed to load linux mint. I've then tried to run Super Grub Disc but it did it things really slowly like 20-30 minutes for checking for avaible partitions. I've given up and tried to use windows 7 cd to repair windows 7, but it went really - 30 minutes before it had checked partitions. I've managed to wait that time and pressed to repair, and got a nap beign discourage by waiting. It apperantly finished as computer restarted itself and tried to load grub which failed. I've restarted computer again and tried to use ls. ls worked this time(before it did not detected anything) and showed me
(hd0), (hd0,msdos7), (hd0,msdos6), (hd0,msdos5), (hd0,msdos3), (hd0,msdos2), hd0,msdos1).
I've used ls on them and:
hd0 - hd0 read error
msdos1 - hd0 read error
msdos2,3,5 and 6 - no such partition
msdos7 - unknown filesystem
I've decided to try again with live cd and this time after waiting for long time it loaded. However If I have tried to install new mint it did not saw any partitions. I don't want to delete them as windows was originally OEM(I had windows7 cd from other source than computer provider).
@edit Ah right! msdos6 is linux partition.
gparted does not see anything same for fdisk
I can bear losing most of my data, except from one file and that oem thing.
@edit2
I managed to run windows installer. Windows found out all partition so i decided to reinstall it. It didn't worked as "installer does not have access to files" or simillar, I've opened installer again and this time it said that hard drive is about to fail. Great...
Now is there any possibility to recover that file from hd?
@edit3
I dont know how but live cd managed to find hard drive, access it and say that disk is imminent to fail. I've managed to restore needed data from it. For me it feels pretty strange cause the more I operate on hd the more it seems to work(as earlier it did not even see filesystem, now it diagnoses it properly). I don't know if its just using its last resources before death or something strange happens.
"Error: Unknown filesystem" at first
Later randomly things like mentioned unknown file system or
"Error: hd0 out of disk"
"Error: Unknown filesystem"
"Error: No such device"
"Error: No such partition grub rescue>"
Live cd used to load slowly, trying to load linux mint loaded first at grey screen which switched to white box on black background. Box was in top left part of screen. And later was /sbin/blkid/ was killed. Memory test caused laptop to restart, comptability mode worked same way, loading grub twice loaded grub options, but it failed to load linux mint. I've then tried to run Super Grub Disc but it did it things really slowly like 20-30 minutes for checking for avaible partitions. I've given up and tried to use windows 7 cd to repair windows 7, but it went really - 30 minutes before it had checked partitions. I've managed to wait that time and pressed to repair, and got a nap beign discourage by waiting. It apperantly finished as computer restarted itself and tried to load grub which failed. I've restarted computer again and tried to use ls. ls worked this time(before it did not detected anything) and showed me
(hd0), (hd0,msdos7), (hd0,msdos6), (hd0,msdos5), (hd0,msdos3), (hd0,msdos2), hd0,msdos1).
I've used ls on them and:
hd0 - hd0 read error
msdos1 - hd0 read error
msdos2,3,5 and 6 - no such partition
msdos7 - unknown filesystem
I've decided to try again with live cd and this time after waiting for long time it loaded. However If I have tried to install new mint it did not saw any partitions. I don't want to delete them as windows was originally OEM(I had windows7 cd from other source than computer provider).
@edit Ah right! msdos6 is linux partition.
gparted does not see anything same for fdisk
I can bear losing most of my data, except from one file and that oem thing.
@edit2
I managed to run windows installer. Windows found out all partition so i decided to reinstall it. It didn't worked as "installer does not have access to files" or simillar, I've opened installer again and this time it said that hard drive is about to fail. Great...
Now is there any possibility to recover that file from hd?
@edit3
I dont know how but live cd managed to find hard drive, access it and say that disk is imminent to fail. I've managed to restore needed data from it. For me it feels pretty strange cause the more I operate on hd the more it seems to work(as earlier it did not even see filesystem, now it diagnoses it properly). I don't know if its just using its last resources before death or something strange happens.