1 Topic by ZiG

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Topic: (noob) I think I messed up my partition table....

Hi everyone. I've registered here because I have a problem with my hard drive. I guess the best way to explain it all is to just tell you what happened. I have Ubuntu 6.06 and Windows XP on a partitioned hard drive. I was in Linux doing some work and went to reboot into XP. GRUB loaded up and gave me error 17; "Cannot mount selected partition. This error is returned if the partition requested exists, but the filesystem type cannot be recognized by GRUB."

Then I tried my Ubuntu live CD but it said there was a buffer I/O error and it wouldn't load. So I tried my ultimate boot cd and used a tool to scan the disk and repair errors. Now when I start the computer I get into GRUB and it gives me error 2, "Bad file or directory type. This error is returned if a file requested is not a regular file, but something like a symbolic link, directory, or FIFO."


Anyway now it will boot into the live cd, which is where I am now, and I see this in Gparted:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/firebirdman1987/Screenshot.jpg


What I want to do is make the other ntfs partition the one it boots from so I can get back into Windows. I won't be needing Linux for a while so I don't care if I can't get into it, I just really don't want to have to reinstall Windows.


Anyway, sorry for the long read for the simple question, but I want to make sure I am going about this the right way.

Thanks.

2 Reply by LarryT

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Re: (noob) I think I messed up my partition table....

ZiG wrote:

Hi everyone. I've registered here because I have a problem with my hard drive. I guess the best way to explain it all is to just tell you what happened. I have Ubuntu 6.06

Hm, from here it is very baaaaaaad :
Ubuntu is still running GParted-0.2.5, which is well know for its bugs ! Last version is 0.3.4-7 (livecd) and 0.3.3 stand alone version.

Larry
GParted-project Admin
Former GParted-LiveCD maintainer (2007)

3 Reply by LarryT

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Re: (noob) I think I messed up my partition table....

could you please past here the output of your grub conf file ?
Should be something like /boot/grub/menu.lst or /boot/grub/grub.conf
Be kind to add /etc/fstab too, please.

thx

Larry
GParted-project Admin
Former GParted-LiveCD maintainer (2007)

4 Reply by ZiG

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Re: (noob) I think I messed up my partition table....

Hmm, I can't. Ubuntu doesn't seem to recognise the file system of that partition and I can't mount it..

Ok, what if I deleted the hda1, hda3 and hda4 partitions so I just had my Windows partition left, then would I be able to boot into Windows normally? I plan to get another hard drive and install Linux on that anyway..

5 Reply by LarryT

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Re: (noob) I think I messed up my partition table....

ZiG wrote:

Hmm, I can't. Ubuntu doesn't seem to recognise the file system of that partition and I can't mount it..

No need to ubuntu to recognize the fs.
What you need is to tell grub to boot of your XP.
Coiuld you please post here the output of :
# cat /boot/grub/menu.lst
please ?
Then I can configure your grub and you should be able to boot off XP

ZiG wrote:

Ok, what if I deleted the hda1, hda3 and hda4 partitions so I just had my Windows partition left, then would I be able to boot into Windows normally? I plan to get another hard drive and install Linux on that anyway..

Hmz, don't think so ! You still need to set hda2 bootable.

Larry
GParted-project Admin
Former GParted-LiveCD maintainer (2007)

6 Reply by ZiG

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Re: (noob) I think I messed up my partition table....

Sorry, I don't know how to get to it.. If I can't mount the partition on live Ubuntu and I can't boot to Ubuntu...


I have a gparted live cd that I put in and it gave me the option to boot to each of my 4 partitions.. I tried them all and the only ones that work are the windows ones. At least I know my data is ok..

7 Reply by LarryT

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Re: (noob) I think I messed up my partition table....

smile
SO , I will come back later.
I think we can fix your issu, with a dos floppy caintaining fixmbr dos tool...
Later ...

Larry
GParted-project Admin
Former GParted-LiveCD maintainer (2007)