Computer froze while on LiveCD, now my flash drive wont work

Questions about Grub, UEFI,the liveCD and the installer
Forum rules
Before you post read how to get help. Topics in this forum are automatically closed 6 months after creation.
Locked
ditchmagnet

Computer froze while on LiveCD, now my flash drive wont work

Post by ditchmagnet »

It shows no partitions now, on windows or in linux. I had a bunch of stuff on it. Is there anything I can do?

I was using Mint 7 live CD and the computer locked up, so I just held down the power button to shut it down, now I have no partions on my flash drive (I had 2, the first was 25GB of storage, and the second was Linux Mint 8 live USB)

PLEASE help me!

Thanks.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
ditchmagnet

Re: Computer froze while on LiveCD, now my flash drive wont work

Post by ditchmagnet »

UPDATE:

I just tried using TestDisk/PhotoRec, but they are unable to see my drive. I am on Windows7 right now, and disk management sees it, but it says: Removable (E:) No Media, and it shows no partitions, there is not even anything to click on to create a partition.
User avatar
900i
Level 6
Level 6
Posts: 1142
Joined: Sat Nov 18, 2006 9:30 am
Location: Wakefield, UK

Re: Computer froze while on LiveCD, now my flash drive wont work

Post by 900i »

This is of no use to you now as it looks like your data has gone. In future if you are in a Linux system and it locks up on you try this first:-

Hold down ALT+SysRq (Print Screen) keys, and then press each of the following keys in this order R E I S U B

This will shut down the system after it has performed the following things,

R: Switch the keyboard from raw mode to XLATE mode
E: Send the SIGTERM signal to all processes except init
I: Send the SIGKILL signal to all processes except init
S: Sync all mounted filesystems
U: Remount all mounted filesystems in read-only mode
B: Immediately reboot the system, without unmounting partitions or syncing

And is much easier on the system than just yanking the power.
Desktop Core i7 Linux Mint 21.1 / Laptop Dell Precision M6400 Linux Mint 21.1
ditchmagnet

Re: Computer froze while on LiveCD, now my flash drive wont work

Post by ditchmagnet »

Wow, I wish I would have known that. Looks like I will be contacting supertalent for a replacement, nothing I can do will even allow me to put a new partition on it.

Thanks very much for the tip though.
viking777

Re: Computer froze while on LiveCD, now my flash drive wont work

Post by viking777 »

There are some people around that don't believe that can happen to a usbkey, but since I have lost about 3 that way I know differently. All three had to be thrown away as they were completely unusable. In my case though one was due to a crash with the drive plugged in but the other two were due to me forgetting to unmount them before removal. This is the reason I hate usb automount so much. My theory (and it has worked for me so far) is that if you have to go to the trouble of mounting a device then you will probably remember to unmount it too. If it has been mounted automatically you might not. Probably the easiest way to not forget to unmount something is to have an icon either in the tray or on the desktop when it is mounted (and not mixed in with dozens of others so it stands out). The makers of desktop environments could help enormously here but seem to be unwilling to do so. The KDE3 storage media applet was the best example of how it should be done and the KDE4 removable devices applet is the worst example (because it looks exactly the same whether or not anything is mounted). Gnome's default setup is about as bad as KDE4 you either get icons for everything or nothing both of which are useless. (there is a way around it though).

The Alt/SysRq route would have been the only way to save your disk though. There are some distros where the Alt/SysRq function is not enabled by default, I don't think Mint is one but I am not sure, so make sure it works before you actually need it again.
Locked

Return to “Installation & Boot”