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Topic: Repairing an initiation of a windows XP HD

hey all!

so i think i've managed to narrow down my problem with my HD

I've connected it up ( via IDE to USB) to a vista laptop and tried running the current stable version i could find ... v0.3.7-7 and it was unable to do anything with the HD...

basically this is the HD out of my main machine running a graphical mod of windows XP called "Windows Dark Edition"

so im trying to fix the boot partitions on this HD with GParted...

WITHIN vista, using disk manager i can SEE the hard drive though it doesn't have a drive number and its listed as "unknown" and it says it needs initiated -- which i BELIEVE means formatted for a particular data

but its already been formatted and something else is preventing it from being read as already having been initiated suggestions?

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Re: Repairing an initiation of a windows XP HD

so I think i've just figured out the problem

its a NTFS formatted drive and form what i was told NTFS is a proprietary formatting and well the inner workings arent available to the opensource community THUS

gparted / linux run operations wont be able to read it

is this correct ?

3 (edited by gedakc 2008-10-01 19:55:18)

Re: Repairing an initiation of a windows XP HD

GParted does support NTFS file systems.  The operations on each of the file systems supported is listed at the following link:
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/features.php

When you booted GParted-Live, did your hard drive device show up in the list of devices detected by GParted (upper right hand corner drop down control)?
Is the hard drive listed in /proc/partitions?

If you know the device name, you can try starting gparted from the command line and passing the device name.  For example,
     gparted /dev/hda

Or, is the problem that GParted does not recognize any partitions or a partition table on the hard drive?
To check the partition table on the drive, you can use the following command:
     fdisk -l -u /dev/hda

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Re: Repairing an initiation of a windows XP HD

Corrupt HD, connected to my laptop (vista) via IDE to USB and ran GParted-Live:
- GParted SEES the disk

Corrupt HD in its native tower running GParted live:
- GParted DOES NOT see the disk

im about to connect the HD back up to this laptop ( cause the laptop at least recognizes the drive ) and trouble shoot from there

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Re: Repairing an initiation of a windows XP HD

danng so now i've given up on trying to get this thing to work and im TRYIng to format it

i 've got 1 option on gparted and its add -- i click it and select MS dos and it just runs for a little while then stops...

nothing happens with the disk lol

suggestions?

6 (edited by gedakc 2008-10-03 23:22:06)

Re: Repairing an initiation of a windows XP HD

It is possible that there is something wrong with the hard drive.

Perhaps you could try running some diagnostic tools on it?  Many hard drive manufacturers provide software on their website for testing the hard drive.

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Re: Repairing an initiation of a windows XP HD

any suggestions as to why GParted might not see my HD when its connected up to its native tower via IDE cable??

and i tried running the diagnostic tools but they dont even see the HD

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Re: Repairing an initiation of a windows XP HD

Perhaps the IDE cable is not fully plugged in, or is defective.  You could try a different IDE cable.

It is also possible that there is a problem with the IDE connection in the native tower motherboard.  If there is a second IDE connector on the motherboard then perhaps you could try it instead.

If the diagnostic tools also fail to see the Hard Drive, then I suspect the problem is related to hardware, and not software.

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Re: Repairing an initiation of a windows XP HD

Is the HD jumper set properly?
I remind that the jumper must be set according to the connection point (master or slave). The various USB external enclosure boxes usually need the jumper set to the master position. Connecting the HD to a tower on a connector already connected to a master HD, means that we have to use it as slave.

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