1 Topic by mnmleung

  • mnmleung
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  • Registered: 2008-09-04
  • Posts: 2

Topic: Machine hangs while moving data with GParted liveCD 0.3.6-7

I have three HDD on my PC.
/dev/sdb is 298.09 GiB, contains
(1) XP /dev/sdb1 66.25 GiB NTFS
(2) a data partition also NTFS, 173.28 GiB
(3) An extended partition with RHEL and also Ubuntu.  These partitions are being deleted so that I can move my data partition to the right / end and start installing linux again.  They weren't booting. 

The deletion went ok. 
The move hang: mouse doesn't respond.  The time displayed did not advance.

I really want to access the data partition which was being moved.  It could be a dodgy SATA cable ... not sure.  Or just a crash.  I have not actaully backed up this partition.  Very bad of me.

It says 289.87 MiB of 173.28 GiB copied

I would love any suggestions to get out of this situation.  Thanks in advance, and greetings from Brisbane.  Ming

2 Reply by stormhead

  • stormhead
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  • From: near Frankfurt/Main, Germany
  • Registered: 2008-07-31
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Re: Machine hangs while moving data with GParted liveCD 0.3.6-7

Hi!

mnmleung wrote:

The move hang: mouse doesn't respond.  The time displayed did not advance.

These symptoms are likely to mean that something went wrong on the Kernel level - I/O errors to your hard drives, system malfunction due to defective RAM or overheat, ...
... or just a driver bug
You should check your hard drives using the diagnostic tools provided by the respective manufacturers; if your manufacturers don't provide such tools, you can try Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test or Seagate's SeaTools for DOS. be careful with any disgbostic tool you use - they usually offer the option to do a write test o yoru disk, which will irreversibly erase anything stored on the drives. So read carefolly what's written on the screen and think twice before clicking anything or hitting any key!

If the drives turn out to be error-free, you should check your memory for errors using memtest86 or memtest86+ - Google will show you the way. ;-)

If the RAM is also OK, it could be a bug in GParted or the underlying Linux system - in this case, more information about your hardware and about the LiveCD version you used could be helpful (maybe not for resolving your problem, but for tracking down the bug).

I really want to access the data partition which was being moved.

I don't know if this is still possible, since the file system metadata may be in a se erely inconsistent state now (which is why I personally prefer to create a backup before any partition move - or to split up the move into a "copy" and a "delete" action where possible: If anything goes wrong during copying, I stil have the unchanged original on disk).

3 Reply by mnmleung

  • mnmleung
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Re: Machine hangs while moving data with GParted liveCD 0.3.6-7

Thanks, stormhead.

I shut down and started GParted-live 0.3.6-7 again.  The partitions that I wanted deleted were indeed deleted, and the data partition I was moving looked as if the move had not happened. 

I ran memtest86+ v2.00 and it came back clean. 
Drives were OK also. 
Booted into the first partition (XP pro 32 bit OS) and ran chkdsk against my data drive.  That was clean also. 

I was lucky.  I have backed up now.  I will follow your advice and split the move into COPY and DELETE next time.  If I run into another hang, I will post more details.

Thanks from Ming