We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.
This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
Can't delete HDD partitions!
Comments
-
How big is the drive?
What drives does DBAN see?
How long did DBAN run for?
just checking but are you *Sure* you picked the correct drive?Laters
Sol
"Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"0 -
Odd. Disk still have partitions on it?
Yep; nothing changed whatsoever.How big is the drive?
What drives does DBAN see?
How long did DBAN run for?
just checking but are you *Sure* you picked the correct drive?
There's only one drive; and Dban's description matched.Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.- Mark TwainArguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon: no matter how good you are at chess, its just going to knock over the pieces and strut around like its victorious.0 -
Dban will wipe all the drives connected unless you specify otherwise. Of course you backed up before you touched Dban right?
I got all their files off.Might be worth hooking the laptops drive up to another computer and either running Dban on it there or DISKPART > CLEAN DISK from within Windows, obviously making sure it's the right disk.
I had it hooked up earlier; windows' format functions were equally ineffective; as were EaseUS' attempts.Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.- Mark TwainArguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon: no matter how good you are at chess, its just going to knock over the pieces and strut around like its victorious.0 -
How big is the drive?
and how long did DBAN run for?
try this..
boot from Linux Live CD/usb stick (this is assuming it's debian based)
run gparted
you should partition listed /dev/sda1 (recovery?) /dev/sda2 (os) etc...
get the drive location (i.e. /dev/sda) make a note of it.
open terminal window
run "sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sd#/" (replace /dev/sd# with what you noted down earlier and type it in without the quote marks!)
go away and make tea and cakes (from scratch! this might take a while!!) ^_~
"dd" is a program that access the disk at bit level and the command given overwrites the entire disk with zeros.
wiping out everything from the boot sectors, partition information and any data.
It's basically what DBAN should do but for some reason it's not working...Laters
Sol
"Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"0 -
How big is the drive?
and how long did DBAN run for?
Drive is 250ish G
Not sure how long it ran first time: the second it indicated it had completed 2 out of 3 passes without any errors last time I'd looked. Came back and it had completed with non fatal errors again, ran for about 3-4 hours and drive is still 100% intact. Still boots right into windows, & the 'restore' partition still shows in disk management.
I think I'm done to be honest. I'm not getting paid anything for this, I quite enjoy it. Don't like to say I've been beat; but I think I have been :-(Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.- Mark TwainArguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon: no matter how good you are at chess, its just going to knock over the pieces and strut around like its victorious.0 -
If Dban can't write to the drive and you can't change the partitions then it sounds like it's read only...
But everything believes it has written to the disk. I can copy files to the desktop & run them; install programs etc. but all changes just disappear when I reboot. It's perplexing.Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.- Mark TwainArguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon: no matter how good you are at chess, its just going to knock over the pieces and strut around like its victorious.0 -
OK!
This might seem like were going round in circles but their is something off here!!
So back to basics! boot using linux boot disk/USB and open terminal
a) Run "df" and copy the results here
b) Run "sudo fdisk -l" and copy results here
that will tell us what drives the system sees and if their is any issuesLaters
Sol
"Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"0 -
OK!
This might seem like were going round in circles but their is something off here!!
So back to basics! boot using linux boot disk/USB and open terminal
a) Run "df" and copy the results here
b) Run "sudo fdisk -l" and copy results here
that will tell us what drives the system sees and if their is any issues
a)
Filesystem - 1K-blocks - Used - Available - Use% - Mounted on
/cow - 1015136 - 34704 - 980432 - 4% - /
udev - 1006788 - 4 - 1006784 - 1% - /dev
tmpfs - 406056 - 796 - 405260 - 1% - /run
/dev/sdb1 - 1966542 - 709356 - 1257186 - 37% - /cdrom
/dev/loop0 - 678912 - 678912 - 0 - 100% - /rofs
tmpfs - 1015136 - 8 - 1015128 - 1% - /tmp
none - 5120 - 0 - 5120 - 0% - /run/lock
none - 1015136 - 76 - 1015060 - 1% - /run/shm
b)
Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb1b40365
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 11350015 5673984 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 11350016 488395119 238522552 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
Disk /dev/sdb: 2021 MB, 2021654528 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 245 cylinders, total 3948544 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000cb540
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 3948543 1974240+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.- Mark TwainArguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon: no matter how good you are at chess, its just going to knock over the pieces and strut around like its victorious.0 -
New info:
Ubuntu's Disk Utility reports that there is some problem with the read/write heads of the disk; but that overall the disk is healthy with no bad sectors.
Ubuntu reports no errors when attempting to write a file to/delete a file from the disk, it apparently moves things to its trash and emptys it too. However, when the drive is unmounted & re-mounted, all changes are undone.Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.- Mark TwainArguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon: no matter how good you are at chess, its just going to knock over the pieces and strut around like its victorious.0 -
I vaguely remember seeing something like this several years ago when trying to re-use a HDD that had (unknown to me) previously been part of a RAID array.
I wonder if it's possible that the RAID and/or LVM flags are set for one or more of the partitions, and so the filesystem handler can't/won't complete any filesystem transactions (i.e. they will appear to work but won't be marked as complete).
In theory you can see and set these flags in GPARTED under Partition, Manage Flags, though I don't recall being able to fix the problem that way.
The only way I found to solve the problem at the time was to write a new MBR/partition table using the HDD manufacturer's utilities.0
This discussion has been closed.
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 352.2K Banking & Borrowing
- 253.6K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 454.3K Spending & Discounts
- 245.2K Work, Benefits & Business
- 600.9K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 177.5K Life & Family
- 259K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.7K Read-Only Boards