I tried to install Mandriva Linux to dual boot on my machine with Windows a couple of weeks ago, and when it came to setting up partitions into which to install there was an error and it deleted my existing Windows partitions. I've now seemingly successfully used Testdisk to recover these but am still having problems and I'm wondering whether it could be a hardware problem. I had three different partitions: two data partitions on one drive and a Windows partition on a different drive. The two data partitions seem perfectly healthy, but the Windows partition is a problem: I can't boot from it, and if I try look at it in Live Ubuntu I get an error message just saying "Unable to mount the volume". Also, if I try to do anything to it using GParted it fails. Looking at it in GParted, it carries a long error message containing a series of "Cluster accounting failed at 0 (0x0): missing cluster in $Bitmap" followed by "ERROR: NTFS is inconsistent. Run chkdsk /f on Windows then reboot it TWICE!". I also get some errors when Testdisk looks at it which I could recheck and type up. I realise that that sounds like a software error, but I wondered if it could be a symptom of a hardware problem? And if not, could anyone suggest a next step in trying to fix it? I'd like to be able to keep my Windows installation if possible, which is why I haven't just reformatted it and started again... Thanks in advance
well, as you are installing Linux & Windoze to 2 separate HDDs, just install each OS with no other HDDs connected, then when both OSs are functioning correctly connect both HDDs as master & slave (you choose if Linux or Windoze is master or slave, personally, i'd use GRUB as the bootloader (master HDD)) BTW: GRUB manual is in my sig then you can add a partition which i presume you want to share data between Linux & Windows
Well, the problem isn't atm with installing linux/windows - at the moment I'm just trying to recover my existing windows partition..
personally, i have very little experience with partition recovery, however, you may have luck with testdisk Edit: BTW: testdisk works on most OSs (obviously using different builds for different architectures) Edit: looked through my bookmarks & there a couple more partition-saving PhotoRec (also from CGSecurity)
