LiveCD qtparted problem

[nikkkko]

I recently hosed my breezy installation, (please, I'd rather not talk about it), so thought this would be a good time to test Flight 7. I first tried livecd, which worked well, allowing me to see my old partitions - four including swap.

I decided to try out the install feature and at the partition stage chose to pursue the manual route as I wanted to keep my existing partitions, reformatting my original / partition and reinstalling kubuntu there. However, it appears that the installer uses qtparted for this stage - appears because the space it appears in is only about 1cm x 1cm big inside the install window and cannot be enlarged.

So I quit and thought I would rearrange my partitions with qtparted outside of the install. I deleted two old partitions to create one big new one and went to choose ext3. No ext3, no reiserfs only ext2. So I choose ext2 and, to cut a long story short, trashed my disk and lost all my partitions.

I'm not a linux expert, I'm a humble user who has neverthelesss managed in the past to partition and install with kubuntu, suse and puppy on 4 or 5 boxes without hosing a disk. Then I try the idiot proof version and... disaster.

Is qtparted really the way to go for livecd?

[luke1011]

Re: LiveCD qtparted problem

doesn't really address the qtParted problems but if you haven't tried the gparted live cd, give it a shot. i used it yesterday and it worked very well.
it's only a 30 MB iso image.
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

[greensh]

Re: LiveCD qtparted problem

I think this is the same bug... but Flight 7 Live CD installer acts weird on the qtparted part. If you click "Back", then the bars showing the partitions become unreadable and relocate to the bottom of the window.

Another bug is that Reiserfs was not a selectable partition type. To get around this, I had to exit the installer, use fdisk to create the partitions I wanted, then rerun the installer and selecting the Reiserfs partitions then worked.

Reiserfs is the best filesystem in my opinion, so unless this is fixed, the installer could be considered a showstopper for newbies.

[askrieger]

Re: LiveCD qtparted problem

I REALLY don't want to start a flamewar about filesystems so, I will only suggest that you take a look at this article: http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/388 Pay attention to the discussion as well as the article itself. Every one has their own criteria for what makes a good filesystem and therefore, it's a good thing that there are a lot of good filesystems.

[nikkkko]

Re: LiveCD qtparted problem

I don't really care which filesystem is best, but I do care that I didn't have a full choice. I care more that the partitioning part of Flight 7 didn't work because of a menu not displaying propertly. Most of all I care that QTParted trashed my disk.

Anyway, if this is a bug and it's been dealt with, so much the better.

Meanwhile, back to my trashed disk. It really is very trashed, to the point that I cannotre format it at all, (with the tool on the install disk). 'Invalid IO errors' or somesuch. Anyone got a suggestion for a tool I can run off cd to examine and fix my disk? (It's a maxtor 200 GB and only 1.5 yrs old).

[askrieger]

Re: LiveCD qtparted problem

Take a look at this Howto: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/ It's the best one that I know.

[nikkkko]

Re: LiveCD qtparted problem

Insert Quote
Take a look at this Howto: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/ It's the best one that I know.

That's a very concise Howto and for someone who's picked up their knowledge piecemeal, nice to see everything in one place. However, I can't use fdisk because the disk is currently "unreadable" according to fdisk. I think I need something more fundamental...

[nikkkko]

Re: LiveCD qtparted problem

... and it turns out to be as fundamental as a disk replacement.

For anyone looking for a good disk diagnostic/repair package, take a look at the aptly named 'Ultimate Boot CD". http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ This contained Maxtor PowerMax 4.22 diagnosis software which let me know that it was the disk that hosed my Kubuntu and not the other way around. It also let me know that the it was under warranty and they would replace it for free. The only question is, do I really want another Maxtor disk?

[kubicle]

Re: LiveCD qtparted problem

For anyone looking for a good disk diagnostic/repair package, take a look at the aptly named 'Ultimate Boot CD".  http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Sounds like a handy tool

How's the heat in your machine...temperature is an effective hard disk killer (especially if you have several hds packed tightly together).

[nikkkko]

Re: LiveCD qtparted problem

Rather boringly, I decided to copy 0's across my hd so that when it went back to Maxtor it would no longer show my bank account details etc. I set it to skip disk areas and it took all night This morning, just for fun I decided to see if the disk was still broken. Guess what, diagnostics come back and say the disk is fine.

It's still going back to Maxtor - I can't rely on it any more - but I'm curious to know how printing 0's can fix a broken disk.

BTW, temp in box is 55C.

[EtherealRemnant]

Re: LiveCD qtparted problem

Maxtor drives are getting worse and worse... sorry to hear about your drive... I have a Maxtor that is in such bad shape after about a year and a half that when its attached to the computer, the computer won't even pass the BIOS POST screen and Maxtor insists it is out of warranty even though the box when I bought it said it had a 3 year warranty - they changed their warranty policy for retail drives like a few months after I bought it and said they won't honor the warranty unless i can produce the original box.

I'll never buy another Maxtor drive, retail or otherwise. I got a Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 to replace it and I'm in love.

Sorry to hear about your drive though, that really sucks.

[nikkkko]

Re: LiveCD qtparted problem

What are the chances Maxtor refuse to take my disk back now that I 'fixed' it?

I got a Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 to replace it and I'm in love.

Funnily enough that it was a Hitachi I was after in the first place but it wasn't in stock at the time...

[EtherealRemnant]

Re: LiveCD qtparted problem

I don't know... Like I said, Maxtor is bad about their warranty crap. Almost as bad as Western Digital.

I used to tout the reliability of Maxtor drives to everyone I knew but now... I'm all Hitachi.

Just out of curiousity, what model is your drive? The one that died on me was a 200GB Maxtor as well...

[nikkkko]

Re: LiveCD qtparted problem

The dead drive was a DiamondMax Plus 9, 200GB ATA/133 HDD. I just received the replacement and interestingly it's a DiamondMax but a 250GB. Maybe they had a problem with the 200's.