Mounting Windows Hard Drive


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Thread: Mounting Windows Hard Drive

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2010
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    Question Mounting Windows Hard Drive

    I have been having trouble with Windows, it is unable to boot due to a registry error. I would like to be able to recover some of my files from the hard drive, so I am booting Knoppix from disk. However, I do not see my hard drive, or any of my files, anywhere. According to the Knoppix help that I read, the hard drive should mount at startup. I can't find mine and I don't think it is mounted because when I look at mounted filesystems using "df -h" there isn't anything even close to the size of my hard drive.

    In /dev I have, among other things, items called "sda" "sda1" "sda2" "sdb" "sdc" "sdd" "sde" and "sdf" From what I have read about mounting a windows drive, at least one of those should be my C:/ drive. I have successfully mounted sd1 and it appears to be the D:/ drive partition. When I try to mount sda2 using "mount -t ntfs /dev/sda2 /mnt/windows", I get the message "Failed to mount 'dev/sda2': Invalid argument. The device '/dev/sda2' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS. Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a partition (e.g. /dev/sda not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?"
    When I try to mount sda using "mount -t ntfs /dev/sda /mnt/windows" I get the same message.

    Can some please help me figure out what is going on and how I can get my files?
    I do not have much experience with Linux, so I would appreciate any direction on this!

  2. #2
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    Can I sugges you try using a live PCLinuxos as I know that it has excellent NTFS support, I have not tried a version of Knoppix in more than a year so I am unsure of its NTFS support.

    If that does not work, let me know.
    Feel free to PM me for help

    Using PCLinuxos 2007 on my laptop and 2009 on my Desktop and proud of it!

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    Please come back and tell us if your problem is solved, it may help others, and stop us from wondering what happened.

  3. #3
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    Show us the partitioning scheme by the command in a root terminal of any Linux
    Code:
    fdisk -l
    Knoppix has not been regularly updated so it is possible that it might have a difficulty with writing a ntfs partition but it should at least be able to read it. Thus leonpmu advice of using another distro like PCLinuxOS is a good one.

    With a modern kernel you can mount any partition by creating its mounting point , say in /mnt and mount the device as root (only root has the privilege to mount). Say for a partition sda3
    Code:
    mkdir /mnt/sda3
    mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/sda3
    In modern kernel you can get away without specifying the filing type.

    If a hard disk partition has developed a hardware corruption that affect the filing index then you can have a difficulty of mounting it because the Linux kernel is experiencing difficulty in understanding it. If that is the case Linux gives you a second opinion while the MS Windows ehavior is the first opinion.

    If the corrupted area affect only a system file, like its registry, then your Windows may not boot but it will be healthy and mountable in Linux for any read/write operation.

    All Linux kernels over 6 years old would be able to read any NTFS partition but those say about 3.5 years old would have "ntfs-3g" build into the kernel enabling writing on NTFS partitions too.
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  4. #4
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    May 2010
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    Thank you for your help. I have made a new boot disk with PCLinuxOS and am now using that on the computer.
    When running fdisk -l I get:
    Code:
    Device  Boot            Start            End           Blocks     ID       System
    /dev/sda1                 1                1111          8924076   c        W95 FAT32(LBA)
    /dev/sda2   *           1112           30400        235263892+  7      HPFS/NTFS
    After creating the necessary directories, I tried to mount sda2 using
    Code:
    mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/windows
    but it just says "mount: you must specify filesystem type"

    I tried specifying the filesystem type as NTFS, but it says that filesystem type NTFS is unknown.

    I believe the computer was infected with one or more viruses and the error message that I get when trying to boot Windows indicates that the registry is corrupted. Am I having trouble because the whole disk is corrupted? If so, is there any way that I can recover data? There are some photos and documents that I would like to save if possible.

    Thanks!

  5. #5
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    You may get away with

    # mount -t auto /dev/sda2 /mnt/windows

    if not try

    # mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda2 /mnt/windows

    Good Luck,

  6. #6
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    May 2010
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    Thank you for the continued help. I tried both commands but neither worked.
    When I used, "mount -t auto /dev/sda2 /mnt/windows" it says that I must specify filesystem type
    When I used "mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda2 /mnt/windows" I get a different message that says: "NTFS signature is missing. The device doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS."

    I did a little research online, and based on that last message, I think my drive is probably corrupted. If anyone has other ideas, I would love to hear them, but at this point I'm not too hopeful.
    If the drive is corrupted, I have two questions:
    (1) I'm short on cash, so I would like to purchase a new hard drive and install a free version of Linux as the OS. Do you know of a free version of Linux that would be good for someone with no Linux experience who just wants to listen to music, use word processing, and browse the Internet?
    (2) When I get a new drive, I would still like to recover as much data as possible from the old drive. Do you know any techniques/programs that are good for this?

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by msfarenheit View Post
    Thank you for the continued help. I tried both commands but neither worked.
    When I used, "mount -t auto /dev/sda2 /mnt/windows" it says that I must specify filesystem type
    When I used "mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda2 /mnt/windows" I get a different message that says: "NTFS signature is missing. The device doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS."

    I did a little research online, and based on that last message, I think my drive is probably corrupted. If anyone has other ideas, I would love to hear them, but at this point I'm not too hopeful.
    If the drive is corrupted, I have two questions:
    (1) I'm short on cash, so I would like to purchase a new hard drive and install a free version of Linux as the OS. Do you know of a free version of Linux that would be good for someone with no Linux experience who just wants to listen to music, use word processing, and browse the Internet?
    (2) When I get a new drive, I would still like to recover as much data as possible from the old drive. Do you know any techniques/programs that are good for this?
    Have you tried something like this:
    Code:
    mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda2 /mnt/windows -o force

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  8. #8
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    If the data is valuable I would suggest the following

    (1) Remove the hard disk and purchase a external hard disk enclosure so that you can use it as a USB hard disk.

    (2) You can continue to run the PC without a hard disk if you have Linux Live CD to boot from and use. Equally you can buy a replacement hard disk and install a Linux (or several of them) in the new disk for use. If you have the Windows original installation CD or DVD you can install Windows to the new hard disk too. If you haven't got the original installation CD/DVD you need an access to one of the similar version and the product key of the Windows in the corrupted disk for installation.

    (3) Your existing hard disk may be in trouble if Linux can't read it. You should get a second opinion by taking the USB disk and hook up to a PC that has a MS Windows. If you can get another Windows to read it then you can retrieve the data inside. Chances are if Linux has a problem so will be a MS Windows. However if your disk is a USB disk it is portable when it comes to data recovery. Just remember never remove a USB device unless you have the agreement with the operating system after it has been "dismounted". In Windows you click an icon at the bottom corner. In Linux you can issue the command in a root terminal to dismount say a dev/sda2 by
    Code:
    umount /dev/sda2
    The command is "umount" and not "unmount"! Failing to remove a USB disk without unmount it can cause damage to the filing system. However if you partition can be mounted in any OS then there is a 99% chance you can retrieve the data inside.

    (4) Depending on the result of the second opinion you may try various tools of data recovery. If the data is critical I would suggest it to be cloned to anther disk and work on the cloned unit only.

    Ubuntu Linux has been the most popular so there will be a massive support available. You can install several Linux with one partition, about 20GB, for each and a common swap partition along side with several MS Windows in a hard disk.
    Last edited by saikee; 08-18-2010 at 06:03 AM.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
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  9. #9
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    Thank you for the advice. I will go ahead and try connecting it with USB to another working computer and see what happens.
    If the disk is corrupt and/or virus infected, could it damage my other computer if I connect the disk to it? The last thing I want right now is two broken computers.

  10. #10
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    You can only damage your other PC if you execute an infected program. By putting the bad disk in a USB enclosure your Windows inside should not boot and so the chance of infecting the other PC is minimal if you only mount the partition and retrieve the personal data.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  11. #11
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    You could try running ntfsfix on the partition also, that might be able to repair inconsistencies on the drive and allow you to mount it. This will force Windows to run chkdsk at startup since it also clears the ntfs journal.
    Code:
    ntfsfix /dev/sda2

  12. #12
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    If your format is corrupted it is possible to use Trinity Rescue Kit to perform data recovery. It works very well with encapsulated files, such as MS Office documents, .ogg, etc. It does not work so well for .mp3 or .mpg files.

    http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.ph...=1&front_id=12
    n00b

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
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    6
    Trinity Rescue is really good tool

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