Old harddrive repair

[Ctazzz]

When I first started working with distros, (haven't  been doing it long), I had a couple of hard drives loose identification and were not seen by livecd when I went to reinstall. I tried using the oem harddrive diagnostic tools, and reformatted ntfs, thinking that was all I needed to bring the harddrive back into service, but the distros would still not see the drive. When I went back to the diagnostic tools, redid the mbr, and formatted to fat32, the harddrives would often become usable again. Just a little more time consuming, but did save a few dollars I could not afford to spend at the time. Hope this helps.

Ctazzz

[bones113]

Possibly a low level format might help. If you have the drive's diagnostic cd then the tool may be included. Give it a shot on that drive. It may help.

[bicol_willem]

I think the hard drives were just fine .... I don't think we can install Linux to a NTFS file system (correct me when I am wrong).

[bones113]

I think the hard drives were just fine .... I don't think we can install Linux to a NTFS file system (correct me when I am wrong).

I think his problem was the fact that his drives which were formatted in ntfs were not being recognized when using a live cd. I would scrub the drives completely clean and try again from scratch. I know in my experiences that if the drive is acting strangely (assuming that the drives have not been physically damaged) scrubbing them then setting up fresh partitions would sometimes fix it. It would be worth a try.

[Ctazzz]

I do understand that PCLos does not run on ntfs, but on many computers with resident XP formatted in ntfs, PCLos would still see the hd and data, even though they were formatted in ntfs, as in my family desktop. I have actually used the livecd to target damaged or infected XP system files and remove or replace them while booted to PCLos (or one of the other distros )  with livecd that also work.

Thanks all,
Ctazzz

[bicol_willem]

I do understand that PCLos does not run on ntfs, but on many computers with resident XP formatted in ntfs, PCLos would still see the hd and data, even though they were formatted in ntfs, as in my family desktop. I have actually used the livecd to target damaged or infected XP system files and remove or replace them while booted to PCLos (or one of the other distros )  with livecd that also work.

Thanks all,
Ctazzz

Thats right. But reading files on a ntfs filesystem is a other gameball then "installing Linux to". (Guess you are already aware of that). 

[Ctazzz]

I do understand that PCLos does not run on ntfs, but on many computers with resident XP formatted in ntfs, PCLos would still see the hd and data, even though they were formatted in ntfs, as in my family desktop. I have actually used the livecd to target damaged or infected XP system files and remove or replace them while booted to PCLos (or one of the other distros )  with livecd that also work.

Thanks all,
Ctazzz

Thats right. But reading files on a ntfs filesystem is a other gameball then "installing Linux to". (Guess you are already aware of that). 

Absolutely, and the installation description of file formats to use and how to set up the drives are quite clear on the livecd (and work quite well  ) to set up properly functioning drives or drives actual partitions that the livecd systems see. The drives I was having difficulty with would not even show up, or would show incorrect or no partitions where known partitions existed. It is also true that some of my problems were self-created. Partitions added to windows resident drives, formatted ext3/fs, then garbled with something done incorrectly (learning curve), and unwilling to sacrifice the rest of the data on a drive being prepared for someone else. Backing up the data on another drive, cleaning up the drive, and starting fresh would have been a better approach, but not an option that was available at the time. I am sure that there are others that may have created a similar situation, and I hoped to offer a resolution to someone other than just scrapping data that could be accessed and reset-up without loss.

Thanks for the clarifications and notice. I appreciate everyone's efforts here.

Have a great day all,
Ctazzz

[jgk62]

I had a couple of hard drives loose identification and were not seen by livecd when I went to reinstall.

Possibly a problem with the installer. AFAIK linux can be installed onto an ntfs partition as well as on unformatted space. The installer sets up the format{ext3 etc..} and overwrites everything. There is an option to install in a windows partition. Maybe you have a loose power plug or a bad interface cable. Those loose connections always plague me. Also, a low level format is necessary sometimes.

[bicol_willem]

I had a couple of hard drives loose identification and were not seen by livecd when I went to reinstall.

Possibly a problem with the installer. AFAIK linux can be installed onto an ntfs partition as well as on unformatted space. The installer sets up the format{ext3 etc..} and overwrites everything. There is an option to install in a windows partition. Maybe you have a loose power plug or a bad interface cable. Those loose connections always plague me. Also, a low level format is necessary sometimes.

NTFS will not be overwritten to my knowledge ... NTFS has to be removed (deleted) and replaced by extX or what ever Linux filesystem, maybe FAT32 as well (I remember distro's in the past I used going as far as overwriting FAT32 with reiserfs) but a NTFS file system unchanged will fail to my best knowledge. But in fact what you say here, I guess, is it can be done but one just needs to delete the NTFS partition and move on from there. Its a bit "both worlds are right". 

[jgk62]

What I was referring to was the PCLOS installer will offer to install PCLOS in a windows partition{ntfs or fat}. That "section" of hard disk space will be set up with ext3 etc.... The installer will wipe out or "overwrite " the ntfs on that "section" of the hdd with ext3. Obviously linux wont run on an ntfs partition. It works kinda like norton ghost, or G4L etc.. It just overwrites the existing data, partitions or freespace. There is no need to delete or low level format. Of course I may be wrong on how it is done via PCLOS. The choices given to the best of my memory are,
use existing partitions
erase and use entire disk.
install in windows partition{not exactly sure of wording}
custom
use free space
The windows option only shows if windows partitions are detected.
As I said I may be wrong about some of this, it's been a while since I've done it. If I am wrong, please correct me.  

[T6]

"Possibly a low level format might help"

not possibly, it is required especially with old hdds or hdds that had many partitions with problems

most hdds will have a tool to do this on the manufacturer website

i had many hdds reporting bad sectors that after a low level format revived again with 0 bad sectors

also when you have lots of problems with a hdd, start thinking on the ide or sata cable used on that hdd, this cables can die slowly giving all sort of problems

a toll to nuke a hdd completely, different from the tolls provided by the manufacturer of the hdd is dban

www.dban.org

it comes as a boot image on several boot/restore cds(similar to the memtest on our pclinux 2009 livecd)

[Ctazzz]

Thank you very much, I will certainly be able to test and use that, as I mess with a lot of older hardware, in fact, this unit I am replying with is an old 900 mhz athlon with 512 mb ram, 8 mb shared on board video, on board sound, on board LAN, nothing in any pci slots, and it runs nicely with ZenMiniMe upgrades completed and nothing added for daughter that My Spaces and little else anymore. I will install whatever she decides she wants. I have two harddrives on this unit, 10.2 gig Seagate and 6 gig WD. Clean and mean old junk revived. Don't ya just LOVE it!

Thanks for all the hard work of everyone involved,
Ctazzz

P.S. I do not know how to add to the hardware database. Advise either here or PM would be great.

[T6]

that hardware sounds good enough to run pclinux without compiz or any other 3d effect(unless you put a real video card on that pc)

[Ctazzz]

I have  now installed all the Gnome based upgrades, installed some games, and the unit still flies on the internet and one the few installed programs. I do not think I will attempt to run the compiz, or 3d setup yet as I agree that a video card upgrade would be advised before doing that. I am wondering if KDE can be run as a desktop if I install all the associated KDE files, without damaging the Gnome-based Zen environment. I am sure the question belongs as another topic. I am still studying the processes involved.

Thanks,
Ctazzz

[Joble]

Tex has a very good post about how to install multiple desktop environments.  I'll see if I can find it again.

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=58268.0

OK, not as detailed as I thought, but I think detailed enough to work with.