Mounting the unmountable
Posted 07-31-2009 at 04:17 AM by Fmeh
For nerds like me this isn't a misleading blog title. For others it is LOL
All I can say right now is that I'm really glad I don't just know about Windows (and some MacOS X) and know at least something about Linux.
I've been working on a Windows machine in which the large drive (which we got a replacement for) pretty much crapped out, and that drive is the one that contains all of this guy's important files.
This drive cannot be accessed by Windows at all--Disk Management can't see it, not even the Windows XP install wizard off the Windows XP Pro CD can see it correctly (it sees it as "unknown device" and it takes about 10 minutes just for it to come to that conclusion). Just having the drive connected makes a fresh copy of Windows take 8 minutes to boot up. At that point, the only thing that could see it was the BIOS.
Now Linux, on the other hand, was able to see that something was there, and in trying to mount it, it gave me the info I needed so I could FORCE mount it (even though it wasn't really recommended). I love that aspect to Linux--you can do things that other operating systems just flat-out won't let you do. I'm almost positive that if I WAS able to mount it in Windows, it would randomly reset or at least give me the blue screen of death.
I was able to mount the unmountable and have been able to back up his files onto another drive. It's doing it at about the speed of a floppy drive, but that's ok if it takes 72 hours to copy, at least it's copying it.
Sometimes I really love Linux. Knoppix is my friend
All I can say right now is that I'm really glad I don't just know about Windows (and some MacOS X) and know at least something about Linux.
I've been working on a Windows machine in which the large drive (which we got a replacement for) pretty much crapped out, and that drive is the one that contains all of this guy's important files.
This drive cannot be accessed by Windows at all--Disk Management can't see it, not even the Windows XP install wizard off the Windows XP Pro CD can see it correctly (it sees it as "unknown device" and it takes about 10 minutes just for it to come to that conclusion). Just having the drive connected makes a fresh copy of Windows take 8 minutes to boot up. At that point, the only thing that could see it was the BIOS.
Now Linux, on the other hand, was able to see that something was there, and in trying to mount it, it gave me the info I needed so I could FORCE mount it (even though it wasn't really recommended). I love that aspect to Linux--you can do things that other operating systems just flat-out won't let you do. I'm almost positive that if I WAS able to mount it in Windows, it would randomly reset or at least give me the blue screen of death.
I was able to mount the unmountable and have been able to back up his files onto another drive. It's doing it at about the speed of a floppy drive, but that's ok if it takes 72 hours to copy, at least it's copying it.
Sometimes I really love Linux. Knoppix is my friend
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Comments
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I'm nerdy enough I get it.
Posted 08-05-2009 at 03:01 AM by Brenda Archer
