[nfbcs] access hard drive

Fri Apr 2 23:48:13 UTC 2010

Kelly, I totally agree that a linux solution can fix the partition
table. We'll just have to agree to disagree about fsck.vfat doing as
good a job as available microsoft tools.

Bryan,

If your friend decides to go with a linux solution (which is
free and accessible, but has a steeper learning curve), then they
should look for a live CD with the orca screen reader on it.  Googling
for "orca linux live CD" will help you find one.

Another way to resize the partition is to use something like "parition
magic", which will be more friendly, since it's a task oriented
approach rather than starting with a linux shell.  However, I suspect
that partition magic is not free, and it is certainly not accessible.
Googling for "partition magic" will take you to the right place to
download the software.

Regardless of whether they go with linux or partition magic, they'll
need to download an ISO image and burn it to a CD, which is something
I don't know how to do on a windows machine. I'm sure it's doable, I
just don't know how.

If they decide to go with partition magic, they'll need a sighted
assistant to drive the computer.  They start by putting the partition
magic cd they just created into the drive, and booting the machine.
After that, they should just poke around until they find the correct
item for resizing the partition.  I have high confidence that this
will be fairly easy to do.

For linux, your friend should spend a bit of time reading docs about
how orca works.  Further, they'll want to read docs about parted which
is aprogram that will do partition management on hard drives.  Again,
it's important to remember what Kelly says.  There are no safety rails
here.  If they aren't sure what they're doing, they can completely
ruin any data on the disk.  (sorry, I know it's dramatic)

They'll boot their computer off the live CD, start
orca, start a terminal, and then run parted.

I can get into more specifics if you'd like, but start with this and
see how it goes.

Jim

On Fri, Apr 02, 2010 at 06:37:35PM -0400, Kelly Prescott wrote:
> I think the linux tools could just resize the partition to fix it.
> and yes linux can repair the filesystem with just as much reliability as a
> ms tool.
> the failing is not with the linux tools, but rather the knowledge of who is
> using them.
> Linux has no fail-safes so if you nuke it, you own all the parts.
> I have repaired many disks/filesystems that commercial and ms tools said
> were toast!
> If you want to discuss it voice, you can call me at 419.909.0550 and I will
> be happy to chat about it.
> The key is more information.
> at this point we are making a lot of asumptions and that can be where our
> logic falls apart.
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
> Of Bryan Schulz
> Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 11:19 AM
> To: NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] access hard drive
> 
> hi,
> 
> the problem was the main drive was 500gb and the spare drive is only 250gb.
> the purpose was to reduce the size so the main drive could be copied to the 
> spare drive so the spare drive could be used in another tower.
> i think the entire partition was resized instead of making another partition
> 
> and now it can't be accessed.
> 
> Bryan Schulz
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jim Barbour" <jbar at barcore.com>
> To: "NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 10:00 AM
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] access hard drive
> 
> 
> > The point is that they boot off the live linux CD.  This gives them an
> > environment to work in that isn't making use of their windows boot disk
> >
> > If they aren't a linux user, this does have a rather high learning curve.
> >
> > However, I'm not really sure that this solution meets the needs of
> > Bryan's friend.  If I understand correctly, this friend has a
> > corrupted mbr and possibly a corrupted filesystem they want to repair,
> > so they can copy files from the disk.
> >
> > Linux can rewrite the MBR, but probably not repair the vfat table.
> > My experience is that LInux's tools for repairing vfat filesystems are
> > not as reliable as the ones MS provides.
> >
> > Bryan, can you explain further what the exact problem is?
> >
> > Jim
> >
> > On Fri, Apr 02, 2010 at 09:32:41AM -0500, Bryan Schulz wrote:
> >> as most, he doesn't use linux.
> >> how is that supposed to work with windows machines?
> >>
> >> Bryan Schulz
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kelly Prescott"
> >> <prescott at deltav.org>
> >> To: "'NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List'" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> >> Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 9:00 AM
> >> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] access hard drive
> >>
> >>
> >> >use a linux rescue disk and you can do it with that.
> >> >you can also copy and resize partitions with it.
> >> >so you could take all data from one partition and put it on the new 
> >> >drive
> >> >and resize the new partition.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >2 choices are:
> >> >grml http://www.grml.org and system rescue cd
> >> >http://www.sysrescd.org
> >> >the grml is probably better as if you have a hardware synthesizer it 
> >> >will
> >> >most likely be able to speak from boot.
> >> >
> >> >the best thing about these solutions is they are free!
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >-----Original Message-----
> >> >From: nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On 
> >> >Behalf
> >> >Of Bryan Schulz
> >> >Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 2:11 AM
> >> >To: nfbcs at nfbnet.org
> >> >Subject: [nfbcs] access hard drive
> >> >
> >> >hi,
> >> >
> >> >a friend wants to know if there are programs that will recreate the mbr
> >> >master boot record and fat file allocation table so files can be
> >> >copied from
> >> >a hard drive that has not been reformatted yet.
> >> >
> >> >Bryan Schulz
> >> >_______________________________________________
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> g
> >> >
> >> >
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