iphitus Posted April 16, 2003 Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 Hi I am a complete noob so please explain how to do do anything in english. I have a dual boot Win95/Mandrake8.2. Kernel: 4.18-6mdk I turned on my computer and selected linux at LILO and it wouldn't load. I turned my computer of and selected 'failsafe' so i didn't have the graphic interface and it loads fine until Mounting root filesystem hda5: bad access: block=2, count=2 ent_request: I/O error, dev 03:05 (hda), sector 2 EXT3-fs: unable to read superblock mount: error 22 mounting ext3 flags freeing unused kernel memory: 260k freed Kernel panic: No init found. Try passing init= option to kernel. It stops there and doesn't react to anything i type. I can reinstall it but i need to get some of the data of the partition first. I don't have access to any other linux computers. Thanks James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted April 16, 2003 Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 I'm guessing that you have a bad sector on your hard drive. You need a utility to "mark" the drive so that the data is moved out of that sector and the sector is not used to store data. I know that ms scandisc (gasp) will do this, and I am sure that there are some commercial utilities that will as well. The problem with ms products, besides their terrible business practices, is that they will not recognize linux data. I am also sure that someone here can direct you to an open source utility. Check this out. :wink: http://www.mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=4387 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted April 16, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 Does anyone know of any disk tools to do the job? Any that'll run in Winblows but still be able to access it and fix it? I really want to get back onto it again. Otherwise is there a way i can access my data (maybe with Toms Root Boot Disk?) move it to windows and reinstall Mandrake? Please help, thanks James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted April 16, 2003 Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 You can try booting off the Mandrake CD1, and typing rescue. Then mount -t ext3 /dev/partname /mnt partname is the actual partition name of the one you need to access.. such as hda2.. If you are not sure what it is, you can try running fdisk (after booting cd1) or run the mandrake installer and do an expert install until yoiu get to the partitioning screen and then look at it (then abort install). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted April 16, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 I tried the above, but when i went into the mandrake install it said that it had trouble reading partitions and when it displayed the it showed my windows partition but had the linux ones displayed as empty. What's happened? Can i get my data back? or do i need to reinstall. If so can i install another distro? thanks James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fubar::chi Posted April 16, 2003 Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 you're data is still there it shows partitions as empty normally (by empty I assume you mean doesn't show how much space is left, so it seems as if whole partition is free). The way i look at it is this way :: if the partitions are in any color other than grey something may be there :: If the color of the partitions is grey nothing is there. :: That's my general rule of thumb (which has been disproved at least once by SuSE installation) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted April 16, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 I think it was grey Sigh. It was working last night. I NEED to preserve the Windows partition unfortunately Do I need to take any special steps to reinstall Mandrake? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fubar::chi Posted April 16, 2003 Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 during reinstall it shouldn't touch your windows partition (make sure you leave it unselected when asked to format drives) You may want to leave the /home partition alone if "it's got color" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted April 16, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 Will it be safe to leave it empty until i buy a retail version of linux? The windows partition is fine but all linux is gone, empty, white. The only thing left is the Mandrake customized LILO. Is it alright if i install say Red Hat instead of Mandrake? I'm going to buy a retail version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted April 16, 2003 Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 The distribution you use is not important. You can install any one of them. (or two or three of 'em! :lol: ) The trouble is the hard drive. Until you correct the hard drive, you will encounter further problems, regardless of the os you use. Once the drive is labled, that is, mrked for sectors that should not be used to store data, you can freely use it again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted April 16, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 How do i mark bad sectors? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted April 16, 2003 Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 BTW, you didn't use your windows disk manager to mess with partitions did you? If so, that may be your problem and the only real fix is to wipe all partitions and start over. I would figure out how to backup your windows data (not OS, unless you have a free partition to store the image on) and burn it to cd. In this case, what happens is that the windows disk manager (or DOS fdisk) does not handle linux extended partitions and as a result will rewrite the partition table incorrectly. All of a sudden your partitions go away. For this reason (after losing my partition table 2-3 times before I figured this out), I run 2 hard drive. The safe way is to use Mandrake's diskdrake to manage your partitions at all times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted April 16, 2003 Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 The hard drive utiliy is what marks the bad sectors, so that the hard drive will not use those sectors in the future. I have several hard drives with bad sectors that are running just fine. If you reinstall linux, you can use scandisk to do this by using the thorough mode. As Cannonfodder has indicated, only do this if you are going to wipe out the linux. After it is done, you can reinstall linux, using its partitioning tool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted April 16, 2003 Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 more and more, I'm thinking someone (pointing finger) used a winblow fdisk or disk manager and after reboot immediately encountered the problem.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted April 16, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 I never used any Winblows disk tools. Before going to bed i shut down my computer (i had just been using linux) and the next morning it wouldn't boot into linux. It gave the error message described in my first post. I want to reinstall a linux distro (not sure of which) where mandrake used to be. Removing the winblows partition is not possible. What steps do i need to take to mark the bad sectors and then install linux again where it used to be? Thanks James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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