Thread: thank god for linux.windows is a pile of shit

^
how do i do that?

i still have quite a lot of unwatched movies, music and stuff in my windows partition.

can't access it through ubuntu either.

'can't mount new volume'...........

Originally Posted by ChiangMai noon

can't fukking use it if it's blinking on and off can I.?

What is blinking?
You started by saying that your partition blinked, something I never has come across before. How can a partition blink?

^
windows is blinking.

won't boot right, just blinks really fast on and off rendering it unusable.

how can i stop it?

i'd like to get in there to transfer some stuff but can't access it through ubuntu because it wasn't shut down properly, means i can't mount new volume.

i tried booting into windows twice last night.

it goes through the boot process about 5 times quicker than normal.

seems to by pass a few of the steps but all the while the thing is blinking on and off, maybe a second on, a second off but sometimes more.

i think it's broken.

Your monitor is blinking when you boot windows?
How far into booting do you get?

Or are you talking about the harddisk LED blinking?

^
the monitor.

blinking furiously, goes all the way through the boot process, through the welcome screen and then shows my desktop, no progress after that, just continues to blink.

i let it go about 10 minutes both times before shutting it down with the big switch cos i have no control over the mouse or anything.

Sounds like Windows doesn't like your video driver for some reason... Boot up in Safe Mode and check you video driver properties...

Here you go...

A description of the Safe Mode Boot options in Windows XP

Most likely a corrupted windows partition/windows driver.
You'll have to find a tool to repair it from within Ubuntu.

^^
i haven't changed anything though.

had the same drivers in it for years and years.

will give it a go though, thnks.

Originally Posted by lom

You'll have to find a tool to repair it from within Ubuntu.

what tool, what corruption?

can't i just get rid of windows?

somehow make it all ubuntu without accessing it and without losing the movies and music i have on there??

Originally Posted by ChiangMai noon

i haven't changed anything though.

Of course not, they all say so

Safe boot mode is a possibility but I guess you have a bad sector in that partition so you'll prolly need a Ubuntu Disc Doctor program that can work on win partitions.

Originally Posted by lom

but I guess you have a bad sector in that partition so you'll prolly need a Ubuntu Disc Doctor program that can work on win partitions.

this sounds like a ballsache.

wonder if Frankie is busy today?

Why can you not access your windows parition from Ubuntu?

Easy enough to mount and write to an NTFS drive i n Linux.

Why don't you do that CMN. Or are you too noooooooooooooooooooooooooooob?

^
can't mount when windows wasn't shut down right.

fact.

Windows partition. You may have ntfs-3g installed already. Open up a CLI (Applications-> Accessories-> Terminal) and type:

sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g ntfsprogs

Now we have what we’ll need to work in the NTFS partition that contains your Windows install.

Next, we’ll have to determine which partition that is and then mount it so we can work in it.

sudo fdisk -l

That command will list all of the available partitions on your hard drive(s). You’re looking for the one that says NTFS. It may look something like

/dev/sda2 1 9327 74919096 83 NTFS

If you have multiple NTFS partitions it’s a good idea to start with the first one. We’ll go through mounting them and you won’t do any harm in looking around. If you can’t find the directories needed in your first NTFS partition, try the next one. In this tutorial, we’ll use /dev/sda2. Remember to change this to correspond with what actually exists on your system.

So, we know what we want to mount (or have a good idea) so let’s get that partition mounted.

First let’s make a directory where it can sit.

sudo mkdir /media/windows

Now let’s mount it and make it read/write so we can modify it.

sudo mount ntfs-3g -o rw /dev/sda2 /media/windows

Change ‘sda2‘ to reflect your hard drive. If this generates an error message, you may have to force the mount with:

sudo mount nfts-3g -o force,rw /dev/sda2 /media/windows

Now you should be able to change directory into your windows partition.

cd /media/windows

That’s the root of your drive. Lets go to where the files you’ll need to replace are.

cd WINDOWS/system32/config

There are five files you’re going to need to pull from your restore point and plonk down here. First though, let’s back up the original files, even if they’re corrupt. Better safe than sorry.

cp default default.bak
cp SAM SAM.bak
cp system system.bak
cp software software.bak
cp security security.bak

Now you have your backup. Next we’re going to overwrite the corrupted files with ones from your last restore point.

cd ‘/media/windows/WINDOWS/System Volume Information’

Now let’s take a quick look.

ls -las

you should see at least one directory that starts with ‘_restore’ and then some random characters. Change directories into that.

cd _restore*

Now another ls to find the restore point directory with the latest date.

ls -las

Look for the most recent directory that is similar to RP123 – it will be different on your machine. Lets move into that directory

cd RP123

Now into the snapshot directory

cd snapshot

If you want to take a look around, do an ‘ls‘ to see what’s there. We’re going to copy those five files we made backups of back to their appropriate place.

cp _REGISTRY_USER_.DEFAULT /media/windows/WINDOWS/system32/config/default
cp _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SECURITY /media/windows/WINDOWS/system32/config/security
cp _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SOFTWARE /media/windows/WINDOWS/system32/config/software
cp _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SYSTEM /media/windows/WINDOWS/system32/config/system
cp _REGISTRY_MACHINE_SAM /media/windows/WINDOWS/system32/config/SAM

Now that you’ve copied these, let’s tell windows to to force a file system consistency check.

sudo ntfsfix /dev/sda2

It’s time to boot into your Windows partition and see if we’ve fixed the problem. So restart and select Windows from your boot loader menu. When it first starts up, you should get a blue screen telling you that you’ll need to run a file system consistency check. Let it do it, and reboot again. Hopefully you’ll be back into your Windows install!


fukkkinellll.

.......

Originally Posted by Muadib

until you can figure out what's up with the driver for your vid card

are you sure that's what it is?

Originally Posted by ChiangMai noon

this sounds like a ballsache. wonder if Frankie is busy today?

Yeah, you'll need his help.
I googled disk doctor software for you since I know you have problems with googling

Anyway, there's a whole bunch of Disc Doctoring programs for Windows and many of them can repair Linux Ext2, Ext3, and Reiser file systems in addition to FAT and NTFS.

There is even a few Disc Doctor programs for Linux but I couldn't find anyone
that would repair a FAT or NTFS partition.

Reminds me of why I prefer to run Windows instead of Linux..

There is a program to fix a mount if it's not unmounted.

Google it

You could always use the Ubuntu forum.

Originally Posted by mrsquirrel

There is a program to fix a mount if it's not unmounted.

it's not mounted.
told you that already.

can't mount the bastard.

maybe if i do safe mode, i can at least shut windows down properly and mount it again.

can i do a windose system restore in safe mode?

would that work?

There is a program that fixes ntfs drives if they weren't shut down

Or

you can use a force command to ignore the check to mount it.

of course you could go read the forums over at ubuntu

^
ubuntu forums are hard to understand.

NTFS-3g: fail to mount NTFS partition. - Ubuntu Forums