[Solved] Qtparted has created a 'bad' drive map?
Posts: 19
Here's what I did:
Installed Mepis onto a machine which had XP on hard drive already.
I used Qparted to set up 3 new partitions for root, swap and home.
Everything works fine - Mepis and XP. But when I run Partition Magic under XP the hard drive shows no partitions on it and is labelled 'bad' by P' Magic.
In Mepis using Qparted the hda drive also shows none of the 5 partitions that should be on there.
Both Qtparted and P' Magic can't perform any functions on this 'bad' drives now.
I had thought that I'd re-install Mepis and not re-format the home area but when I tried this from the live disk the formating of the root and swap areas fails (Qtparted hangs on the progress window).
Any ideas?
Nick
TestDisk might be able to help
Posts: 1109
I don't know if this would be applicable to your issue or not (it seems odd that QTParted can't do anything with the parititions).
But, I had a problem not long ago that I solved using Testdisk (and it's in the repositories and installable via Synaptic).
While I was half asleep and experimenting with different MBR (Master Boot Record) types on a CompactFlash Card using Ranish Parition Manager, I removed the existing partitions on my primary hard disk drive instead, overwrote it's Master Boot Record, created a new Partition, and started formatting it before I realized that the wrong drive was selected (I didn't notice the extra decimal places in the drive size until it was too late). I've got to pay attention to those little details. 
It was my primary hard disk drive with Windows XP, SimplyMEPIS, Kanotix, and lots of important files on it, versus the CompactFlash Card I was experimenting with. Big OOPS!
Well, I booted into a Live CD (I used Kanotix), installed TestDisk, and managed to recover the NTFS partition on the drive, my SimplyMEPIS parition, my Kanotix partition, and even my Linux Swap Parition, with no loss of data.
I did need to recreate the MBR using fixmbr from an XP CD, then reinstall GRUB. But, the NTFS partition and my Linux partitions survived my mistakes intact, thanks to this program.
So, if some applications think that the partitions are no longer there, it may be worth a look to see if it's simply a matter of letting it rebuild the partition table on the drive.
Jim C.
I'm wondering if this drive
Posts: 1634
I'm wondering if this drive has hidden partitions on it, or has drive overlay software installed.
"You have two labs?"
"Each has its place. At the university, I try to please the Federal Government. Here, I negotiate with God."
I've used TestDisk to
Posts: 19
I've used TestDisk to recover the situation - great tool!
Jon, sorry my post wasn't that clear- I had a windows partition then an extended one which contained the 3 linux ones (root/swap/home) - hence the 5 I mentioned - PM show this as 5 entries.
Both XP and Linux worked fine after the Mepis install but it was when I ran PM or QTP that I noticed that something was wrong with the disk and that no futher operations could be performed.
All ok now - thanks everyone who helped! Very responsive forum.
Cheers
Nick
Great
Posts: 1109
Great. I'm glad you were able to solve it.
After my recent mistake (deleting all of my partitions), I've got the greatest respect for the author of TestDisk now.
I hope I don't need to use it again anytime soon. But, it's nice to know it's available if needed.
Jim C.
Thanks
Posts: 5513
Thanks Nick for the clarification of your situation, and congratulations on getting things fixed
Jim, thanks for the reference to TestDisk. I think I'll get a copy and add it to my "bag o' tricks". I have had good luck using GParted Live CD:
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
I have used it to create, move, and copy single partitions and entire drives from an internal hard drive to an external USB drive, and allow shrinking/growing at the same time.QTParted doesn't seem to know anything about USB-connected drives. Very nice.
Jon
GPARTED > QtPARTED
Posts: 6
Try to use program 'gparted' (not Qtparted) whitch is available as a root and works much better and with more usefull tools.
'sudo gksudo gparted' or 'gksudo gparted' as a root.
Better managing is in GPARTED.
I'm Unclear
Posts: 5513
Nick, can you please clarify the total number of partitions that you wanted to have on that drive (and how many you started with)? You state that you set QTParted to create "3 new partitions", but later that QTParted and Partition Magic show "5 partitions".
When you use QTParted you need to "commit" the changes to the hard drive, but that's a separate issue. The first issue is that you can only have four physical partitions on a single hard drive. If you need more partitions then one of those partitions first must be made as a virtual partition and then broken down into multiple logical partitions.
Can you give us more information on your layout? What is the total size of the hard drive, how much space did you allocate to Windows, and did you "defrag" Windows before you did anything? With that, perhaps we can offer some suggestions to help you correctly lay out your system
Also, is Windows XP still intact or are you having problems with that now too?
Jon