1 Topic by RandyInFlorida

  • RandyInFlorida
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Topic: OK, Running Live off of a CD Image- how do you save error data?

First, thank you to all who've worked on this wonderful product, it is a remarkable piece of software that's always (eventually) worked miracles for me.  Please don't imagine this is at all a rant.

HOWEVER, it seems to me the best way to use GPARTED is by burning a CD (I use R/W to keep up with versions) but then, if you get a message like 'An error occurred, save data', there doesn't seem to be any way to select anything other than ROOT of the CD to do that.. and CDs are not perfect for saving anything once closed.  I'm a Windows guy, maybe I'm missing some magic in *inux to choose somewhere else to do it, but the choices boxes sure don't seem to let you put the data file anywhere else.

Specific configuration and how I used it:  Dell Latitude D 610, XP SP3, 75 GB GD 1 G memory (yeah it's a corporate box)

1.5 TB external drive (Seagate green?)   in Rosewell case, USB connection. 

Booted to CD, did copy of Laptop hard drive, did paste into blank/unformatted area of USB drive and after the copy was apparently finishied, got the 'there were errors, save data if you want to report the errors' message at the end.  Unable to figure out how to save data to something other than the root which was a CD.

Problem 2 I saw:  OK, rebooted laptop and had over 45 nail-biting, heavy drinking, excessive swearing moments of 'orphan file being something or other' and other inscrutable Windows  messages scrolling quickly across a screen where I sure as heck wasn't gonna touch ANYTHING before the system finally did boot into Windows XP (THANK YOU! THANK YOU THANK YOU).  So, how does a copy/paste FROM a drive lead to errors on a copied drive that was not the booted one?  Yes, NTFS.

Thanks for thinking about these, I'll answer if I can, and again, being able to write the error data to a USB stick for example when booted from a CD seems like a really obvious progression for all of this...  to me...

Randy  (in Florida)

2 Reply by RandyInFlorida

  • RandyInFlorida
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Re: OK, Running Live off of a CD Image- how do you save error data?

I forgot to add that the version was 0.12.0-5, downloaded and burned this afternoon/evening US time.  Most current.

Thank you again!

Randy

3 Reply by class413

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Re: OK, Running Live off of a CD Image- how do you save error data?

The "root" of the Linux system remains in RAM, until you reboot or shut down the system (then the RAM content is lost).
To save the detail file, you can use a mounted writable device (USB stick, floppy disk, external or internal hard drive) with a healthy file system, to copy it there. Using a FAT or ntfs file system will allow you to read copied files from mswindows too.

I copy from the GParted Manual (in the GParted Documentation web page):

If you want to save the details from applying all operations, then click Save Details. The application displays a Save Details dialog.

   1.
      If you want to change the default file name, then type a file name in the Name text box.
   2.
      If you want to save the file in a folder different than /root, Click Browse for other folders. The application displays a file system navigator.
      Use the file system navigator to select a folder.
   3.
      Click Save to save the file. The application saves the details file.

Caution

If you use gparted from a Live CD, then the root file system exists in RAM memory. All files saved to the Live CD root file system will be lost when you shut down the computer.

If you saved the gparted details to the Live CD root file system, then you need to copy the file to more permanent storage. Examples of more permanent storage are a hard disk drive or a USB flash memory drive.

Further info on this topic: in the GParted Live manual.
Look for sections "Saving GParted Details" and "Copying Files to Other Media".


1.5 TB external drive (Seagate green?)   in Rosewell case, USB connection.

Just a remark, not really critical: if this hard drive belongs to the new generation with 4096 byte sectors instead of the "old good" 512 byte/sector format, it is better to use the default älign to MiB" option for this drive. This is relevant for hard drives connected directly to a motherboard SATA port or to a controller card. The USB interface is very slow, so you can't notice any performance issue in case you use the legacy cylinder alignment.


On the Problem 2: I understand that the operating system booted well.
I guess that the operating system did a chkdsk operation just before booting. The mswindows system runs chkdsk before booting, if it detects that the filesystem was somehow altered. This check often brings to surface some lost files or file fragments.

An orphaned file can often be restored to the appropriate directory if that directory at rest exists. If the suitable directory no longer exists, CHKDSK creates a directory within the root directory and places the file. These files usually contain fragments of files, orphaned entries and cross connections, as they emerge from a crash or improper shutdown. If your system is stable at the moment you can safely delete them after checking.

I didn't understand well if the check was done on the original (source) partition or the copy.
It is not recommended to boot into mswindows with a copy partition connected, especially if it is the system partition. This is because the booting system sees the copy, it gives it another letter (if the source one is c:,  the copy can be e: or f: or ... ).
Errors can occur in case of bad physical connections: loose USB cable or SATA connectors. In many cases the system detects that something goes wrong and gives error message. However, sometimes this can be pass with inpredictable results. You can find in this forum topics on strange errors that were fixed by checking the cable connections or by changing a defective cable.
But, orphaned files are not copy errors. They come from older problems and emerge with the chdsk /f operation.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

4 Reply by gedakc

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Re: OK, Running Live off of a CD Image- how do you save error data?

Thank you RandyInFlorida for your compliments on the work done by the GParted Team.  It is always good to hear that GParted is a useful partitioning tool to people, such as yourself.  smile

Further to the advice by class413, the copy of a partition has exactly the same label and UUID as the source partition.  If the copy and the source partition are to remain on the same computer for use at the same time, then either the copy or the source should have the label and UUID changed.

A more detailed description of the need to change the UUID is contained in the GParted Manual under the section "Copying and pasting a partition".