how to repair my broken system (HDD) from liveCD? [solved]

[swefal]

computer too old to mention, dualboot XP and Kubuntu 9.04 (EXT4) on two hard drives, second is split between EXT4 (linux) and FAT32.

a few months ago my hard drive crashed (it does that every now and then) and this time it messed up the Kubuntu system. loading it stops in the middle, telling me the files are corrupt and it can't find user details or something like that. if i do fdisk it gives me a big warning that if i do it on a mounted partition it may destroy everything. today i finally managed to get my cd drive to work so i've been trying to use the live cd (9.04) to do fdisk from there, but how can i find the right partition and the right drive? how can i repair my system without resorting to reinstalling kubuntu?

[Qqmike]

Re: how to repair my broken system (HDD) from liveCD?

To find the right partition and grive, try

sudo fdisk -lu

or

sudo grub
grub>geometry (hd1)
grub>geometry (hd2)
and/or
grub>geometry (hd1,0)
grub>geometry (hd1,1)
etc.

Chances are that hd1 will be sda and hd2 will be sdb.

[Qqmike]

Re: how to repair my broken system (HDD) from liveCD?

http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eherma...xt3_filesystem
... might help


and/or ...

Run GParted Live CD and see if it will see and repair your partitions/filesystems (right-click on a highlighted partition > Check).


(If your partition table is broken, then use TestDisk.)

[swefal]

Re: how to repair my broken system (HDD) from liveCD?

for some reason if i do "sudo" from the live cd iget the message

 bash: /usr/bin/sudo: Input/output error

and all i have is this live cd and an opensuse live cd, and i'm not sure that one is in good condition.

[Qqmike]

Re: how to repair my broken system (HDD) from liveCD?

I'm not sure what's going on with your sudo.
If you have a Kubuntu live CD, while you are booted into a live session with it, you can install gparted using your package manager (Adept or KPackageKit, under K > System > Package Manager or something like that). Then gparted will appear under K > System > Partition Editor (or, I think it will also run from Konsole using sudo gparted or gparted).
Try that and see if you can get gparted running because it will automatically help you see these damaged filesystems and repair them. The easiest and best bet (versus using fsck manually).

[swefal]

Re: how to repair my broken system (HDD) from liveCD?

thanks, worked like a charm. i managed to see which was the problematic one and fix the majority of the problems (about 3000 times pressing on the Y button, at least) and managed to update to 9.10, although i think there are still problems (like with java and a few error messages i get at startup) but otherwise works just about fine.

thanks!

[Qqmike]

Re: how to repair my broken system (HDD) from liveCD? [solved]

Great! Glad you got it fixed--nice job on your end.
Thanks for the feedback.