Recovering XP data

[RoadToadq]

Sorry ... have tried some rudimentary searching but am looking for a quick (and lazy?) fix!!

I had windows XP intalled. I then isntalled SUSE Linux 10 desktop and compressed windows into another partition in the process.
Dual boot worked for a couple of days then I got the windows 'blue screen of death' ... 'unmountable boot volume' when trying to boot XP

Should have stood back and considered ...... but reinstalled XP into the LINUX partition thinking I might be able to 'see' the old windows data partition at least (I think LINUX in first 2 partitions, windows in 3rd and 4th). NO luck: partitions 3 and 4 showing as unknown, healthy and 100% empty.

Is there anything I can do at this stage? Can't remember root name or password (well I might be able to, if crucial ... but would have thought that info gone by now). If I reinstall LINUX from scratch will it know anything about the partitions and data??

Any help gratefully accepted. Thanks.

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

but reinstalled XP into the LINUX partition

you have erased Linux already. i dont think SuSe will work in rescue mode now. boot up from any LiveCD ( Knoppix will be best option ), open Terminal and execute 'fdisk -l' command. post output here.
if Windows Partitions are intact, its possible to recover data.

[RoadToadq]

Hi and Welcome !


you have erased Linux already. i dont think SuSe will work in rescue mode now. boot up from any LiveCD ( Knoppix will be best option ), open Terminal and execute 'fdisk -l' command. post output here.
if Windows Partitions are intact, its possible to recover data.

Hi thx for the welcome!

I will get exact details tonight, but I already did that by googling..

Hope this is not just confusing cause I really have no idea with linux. but here is what I recall

hda1, 2 said they were NTFS and ME/win95 (or something) and (about 23gb)
I was sure when I initially installed linux it had 23 gb free and windows had about 8gb free after compression that is why when I reinstalled windows i put it on the 23 gb partition

hda5 is a swapfile and hda6 and 7 say they are linux

I faffed around with vim /mnt/boot/grub/menu.lst

adding the lines

title windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader (hd0,0) +1


.... now I have a dual boot option ... when i choose windows from it i get a clean copy of windows (ie what I installed I guess)... I can only think I have, via typical blundering incompetence, wiped out my old windows installation with a new one - although never at any time did windows recognise it was installing onto an existing version.

If you can make any sense of this it would be a great help. I will put up the fdisk -l output this eve but if its obvious I have already stuffed things up irretrievably please tell me

Thanks

[RoadToadq]

fdisk - l produces:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 2939 23599458 7 HPFS/NTFS
partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/hda2 2939 4870 15518758+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/hda5 2939 3002 514017 82 Linux swap/solaris
/dev/hda6 3005 3758 6072538+ 83 Linux swap
/dev/hda7 3759 4870 8932108+ 83 Linux swap


I'm thinking that doesn't look good.... 2 partitions starting on same cylinder apart from anything else. Heeeeeeeelp Anything I can try?

[devils casper]

wrong cylinder boundary is not a problem. your NTFS partition is intact. bootup from Windows installation CD, select repair and execute fixmbr. reboot machine. check if Windows boots up.
in case, it doesn't work, mount /dev/hda partition and recover data.

[tyc]

While this may come too late for your present problem, if I may, consider the following "trick" regarding not only your MS files but your Linux files as well ...

When in Linux (same for the MS side) when in the USER account, consider making a new folder called "BACKUP" and within that folder make a sub-directory for each and every primary directory you now have as a USER. Then after saving a given file which you just worked on, re-save it; i.e., "save as" that file within the applicable BACKUP sub-directory.

Sounds simple, almost too simple, almost too basic but you wouldn't believe just how handy something like can be - and it takes so little time time to do.

Hope this helps.

tyc

[apoorv_khurasia]

A better solution is to organize your work neatly into balanced dirs and backup selected dirs using some scripts.