<div class="gmail_quote">On Jan 18, 2008 11:59 AM, William Case <<a href="mailto:billlinux@rogers.com">billlinux@rogers.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Hi; I have never been a tech support person. But I can see why some of them go crazy. <div class="Ih2E3d"> On Sun, 2008-01-13 at 16:07 -0500, William Case wrote: > Hi; > > I have a hard disk that seems broken but I am trying to save -- or at > least save the data on it. > > The broken hard disk is a dual boot SCSI disk that worked. > * BIOS says that the disk is present and accounted for i.e. right > name and size even after swapping in and out other harddisks. > * Using Fedora rescue disk, parted /dev/sda says can't read sda. > * Using Fedora rescue disk, fdisk /dev/sda says can't read sda. > * Using Fedora rescue disk, chroot /mnt/sysimage can't mount > sysimage. > * fdisk /mbr says can't fix mbr. ( I am not sure whether this > message means that nothing is wrong with the mbr or that it is > beyond repair ) > > I would like to do any of the following: > * get the hard disk working again, or, > * view the data on the disk, and/or, > * rescue the data on the disk. > > What should I try next? </div>My friend just told me that his drive 'broke' while he was trying to increase the size of his WindowXP partition while in Fedora using 'parted'. His description "Everything was working fine then 'parted' burped and didn't finish moving files and the disk hasn't worked since". It sounds like he has lost all his partitions. He can't re-install the Windows part. He bought his re-furbished computer that included WindowsXP Pro from a reputable dealer. He failed to get an installation disk. I assume the .cab files have been stored in the Windows partition. As unlikely as it seems, can anyone suggest a way to find a bootable partition, Fedora or Windows. If I can get to Fedora, there is a chance I can rescue his Fedora files, and perhaps mount the Windows partition to save some of his Windows files. If not, I will tell him to phone the dealer and see if they can help. Although the situation is not desperate, desperate (i.e. only personal and household data are on his files) I am regarding this as a learning challenge that contains some bragging rights. Any suggestions gratefully received. <div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"> -- </div></div></blockquote><div> Assuming you can mount the drive . Try some of the data recovery tools in the repos testdisk has worked for me in the past, dd_rescue is another and there are more but my experience with data recovery is limited. Always read the man pages before you use the tools. -Max </div></div>