Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table

[GreyGeek]

Re: Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table

What was your PWD when you issued the command? (Present Working Directory) "echo $PWD" whill show it.

Did you get an error msg when you issued the command?

Just for grins, open a Konsole and issue
sudo su -

then do
chown -v pabloablo mbrsave.bin
because "sudo" is not needed.

[pablo173]

Re: Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table

OK--Here goes...

pablo@pablo-desktop:/media/OS/Data/LinuxSystem$ pwd
/media/OS/Data/LinuxSystem

pablo@pablo-desktop:/media/OS/Data/LinuxSystem$ ls -l *.bin
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 512 2010-09-16 14:13 mbrsave.bin

pablo@pablo-desktop:/media/OS/Data/LinuxSystem$ sudo su -
root@pablo-desktop:~# chown -v pabloablo mbrsave.bin
chown: cannot access `mbrsaveroot.bin': No such file or directory
failed to change ownership of `mbrsaveroot.bin' to pabloablo

root@paul-desktop:~# ./chown -v pabloablo mbrsave.bin
-su: ./chown: No such file or directory

root@pablo-desktop:~# ls -l *.bin
ls: cannot access *.bin: No such file or directory

root@pablo-desktop:~# exit
logout
paul@pablo-desktop:/media/OS/Data/LinuxSystem$

[GreyGeek]

Re: Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table

When you sudo su - to root you do not remain in your current PWD. You are root and the root "home" account is where your PWD is.

So, after you sudo su - and become root, issue
cd /media/OS/Data/LinuxSystem$
then do
chown -v pabloablo mbrsave.bin

[pablo173]

Re: Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table

OK, chown reports:

changed ownership of `mbrsave.bin' to pabloablo

but subsequently, ls -l reports still owned by root:root.

If I need to use the saved mbrsave.bin, what ownership should it have?

[GreyGeek]

Re: Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table

Try it with the -c parameter and not the -v parameter and see if it still reports a change.

If not, what is the file system type for LinuxSystem?

[pablo173]

Re: Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table

pablol@pablo-desktop:~$ sudo su -
[sudo] password for pablo:

root@pablo-desktop:~# cd /media OS/Data/LinuxSystem
root@pablo-desktop:/media# cd OS/Data/LinuxSystem

root@pablo-desktop:/media/OS/Data/LinuxSystem# ls -l *.bin
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 512 2010-09-16 14:13 mbrsave.bin

root@pablo-desktop:/media/OS/Data/LinuxSystem# chown -c pabloablo mbrsave.bin
changed ownership of `mbrsavepaul.bin' to pabloablo

root@pablo-desktop:/media/OS/Data/LinuxSystem# ls -l *.bin
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 512 2010-09-16 14:13 mbrsave.bin


Linux partition is ext4.

Could it be that Kubuntu is set up so that root owns all binary files?

[Snowhog]

Re: Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table

Something isn't right. In the console, still as root, type:

updatedb

Then look at the file again.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table

Well at least it's rwxrwxrwx so anyone can use it. Try copying it as your normal user.

[pablo173]

Re: Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table

root@pablo-desktop:/media/OS/Data/LinuxSystem# updatedb

root@pablo-desktop:/media/OS/Data/LinuxSystem# ls -l *.bin

-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 512 2010-09-16 14:13 mbrsave.bin

root@pablo-desktop:/media/OS/Data/LinuxSystem#

[GreyGeek]

Re: Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table

What kind of device is that partition on?
And, with it mounted, what does /etc/mtab show?

[pablo173]

Re: Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table


Still trying to figure out mt hard drive type, but:

pablo@pablo-desktop:/etc$ ./mtab
bash: ./mtab: Permission denied

pablo@pablo-desktop:/etc$ sudo ./mtab
sudo: ./mtab: command not found
pablo@pablo-desktop:/etc$

[Snowhog]

Re: Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table

You don't have to be in the /etc directory. But, now that you are, just type:

cat mtab

When you open a console, you are in your user home directory. Then you would just type:

cat /etc/mtab

[Snowhog]

Re: Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table

pablo173@

You will benefit greatly if you learn how to do in a Linux console what you (likely) are familiar doing in a Windows command window. See UNIX For DOS Users

[pablo173]

Re: Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table

Roger that. Here are mtab and fstab:

pablo@pablo-desktop:~$ cat /etc/mtab
/dev/sda5 / ext4 rw,errors=remount-ro 0 0
proc /proc proc rw 0 0
none /sys sysfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
none /sys/fs/fuse/connections fusectl rw 0 0
none /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw 0 0
none /sys/kernel/security securityfs rw 0 0
none /dev devtmpfs rw,mode=0755 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev 0 0
none /var/run tmpfs rw,nosuid,mode=0755 0 0
none /var/lock tmpfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
none /lib/init/rw tmpfs rw,nosuid,mode=0755 0 0
none /var/lib/ureadahead/debugfs debugfs rw,relatime 0 0
/dev/sda3 /media/OS fuseblk rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096 0 0
binfmt_misc /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc binfmt_misc rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
/home/paul/.Private /home/paul ecryptfs ecryptfs_sig=10cad7d832774f73,ecryptfs_fnek_sig=da a5a20cc9f8200b,ecryptfs_cipher=aes,ecryptfs_key_by tes=16 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /media/Cruzer vfat rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=1000,utf8,shortnam e=mixed,flush 0 0

pablo@pablo-desktop:~$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Devices are identified as follows:
#
# /dev/sda1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="DellUtility" UUID="3030-3030" TYPE="vfat"
# /dev/sda2: UUID="4C023C8D023C7E50" LABEL="RECOVERY" TYPE="ntfs"
# /dev/sda3: UUID="30523FB8523F81A0" LABEL="OS" TYPE="ntfs"
# /dev/sda5: UUID="d4e2b60c-e206-4f5d-b3ba-80c42002f4e6" TYPE="ext4"
# /dev/sda6: UUID="f055c17a-7780-4e77-8685-75d82ea8129e" TYPE="swap"
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# The number of spaces does not make any difference. Take the following line, for example:
# LABEL=Files /home/fred ext3 defaults 0 2
# The first bit of information is the thing we want to mount.
# The second bit of information is the "mount point",
# or where we want the thing to be accessible.
# The third bit of information is the type of filesystem on the device.
# The fourth bit of information is the options we want to specify.
# The fifth and sixth bits of information are numbers relating to error checks.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=d4e2b60c-e206-4f5d-b3ba-80c42002f4e6 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=f055c17a-7780-4e77-8685-75d82ea8129e none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
UUID=30523FB8523F81A0 /media/OS ntfs defaults 0 0

[pablo173]

FIXED: Dell Backup Software Trashes Partition Table

Success!!! Here's what must have happened:

I have a Win7/Lucid dual-boot machine (a Dell 537S) which boots using Grub. While I was running Win 7 a popup window offered to update my Dell Rescue Partition. I clicked "OK" (bad move!) and supposedly the update took place, followed by an automatic reboot. But upon trying to reboot, I found that my GRUB was trashed, and Grey Geek helped me restore my MBR.

BUT, every time I ran Win7, my GRUB/MBR got trashed and needed to be reinstalled. I theorize that Dell DataSafe runs on every Win7 startup. DataSafe is known to interfere with GRUB by writing to the MBR, and thus wipes out GRUB at every Win7 startup.

The suggested solution on the Ubuntu forums is to remove Dell Datasafe. In Win7 I went to the Control Panel, then to Programs and Features and uninstalled anything that said "DataSafe" (there were three such programs).

Now I have a working, reliable GRUB.

Thanks to Grey Geek and ardvark71 for their help, and thanks to Kubuntu Forums, a truly wonderful resource.