I have a very very hard problem for Ubuntu / Linux

I used WUBI to install Ubuntu under Windows. This worked well for a while until Windows decided it hated Ubuntu and wiped out the Ubuntu filesystem. The Ubuntu file system was stored as a file on my hard drive. I've tried standard data recovery techniques to get the file back, but it is corrupted and un-usable. I've been using Ubuntu to access a partition of my hard drive that is not accessible under Windows. Now the easy thing to do would be to use WUBI to re-install Ubuntu completely. However, there's two major problems with that.
1. I don't have high speed internet and a re-install using WUBI requires a 700 MB+ download.
2. Re-install using WUBI would involve changes to the bootloader. Although this is low risk, I'm in a situation where I don't have the tool to fix my computer is something goes wrong during the process. I would be without a computer for the next 4 months.
WUBI did save the original installation image so in theory I should be able to re-create the Ubuntu filesystem using that. However, WUBI was never meant to do that and I have no idea how to do it myself.

I'd appreciate any suggestion on WHERE to ask the question so I might be able to find a solution. I've tried the Ubuntu forums and have yet to recieve anything meaningful.

What filesystem is the partition you can't access in windows formatted under?

If they're ext3, then check this out: http://www.howtoforge.com/access-linux- ... om-windows

For some reason, the hard drive doesn't show up in the bios when I have the computer in SATA mode. If I switch to compatiable mode, I can see the hard drive, but windows won't boot. That's why I need linux to access the hard drive.

The partition is NTFS, but I can't get windows to see the hard drive.

Here's what I get:
You have a hard drive partitioned into 2 partitions:
1 - Primary, boots windows, NTFS filesystem
2 - ??? (You just say windows won't read it) - Gman's question still stands, is the filesystem ext3?

You installed ubuntu into a virtual disk.

You then booted into ubuntu to access the files on the second partition.

You don't care about wubi or ubuntu, you only care about accessing files on that partition.


My questions:

• Do I understand correctly?
• Are you sure its not just the bootloader that got corrupted, and that it is, in fact, the virtual drive that is corrupted? How do you know this?
• What file system is that second partition?
• Do you need to write to that second partition, or just harvest files from there?
• Do you have, and are you able to boot from a properly formatted USB drive?
• If not, are you able to burn and boot from CDs?

Answers to those questions will probably get you a better answer, but there are a few windows utilities that allow you to access other file systems (haven't had much luck with them, but never tried the one that Gman linked to) and also a ton of lightweight linux distros(smaller download) that allow you to boot from usb key and access all partitions, you could then mount both partitions and copy the files you wanted from the non-NTFS filesystem to the NTFS (Windows) filesystem.

EDIT:
If you're sure that the partition is NTFS, its also possible that windows just didn't assign it a drive letter

( For Windows 7, XP might differ slightly)
- Right click My Computer
- Manage
- Storage
- Disk Management
- Look at your disk and verify that you see both partitions and they're both NTFS.
- If so, right click and try to assign it a drive letter with: "Change Drive Letter and Paths"

If you've got your Windows XP CD, you can try re-scanning your drives for boot configs. This is what I'd do in your situation, if fomenta's steps don't work.

- Put the drive in compatibility mode
- Boot to the XP CD
- Select R for repair
- Select C for recovery console
- At the prompt, type "bootcfg /rebuild"

Go through the menus there, and it should re-build your bootloader to detect all valid Windows installations. If there is more than one, you'll be able to see a boot menu (e.g. if the other drive has Windows installed on it, you may be able to try to boot to it). If it only finds one, you should now be able to boot from your Windows installation even with the FUBAR drive working.

-G

* Do I understand correctly?
Close, it's two physical drives, one with Windows, one with data, everything formatted NTFS

* Are you sure its not just the bootloader that got corrupted, and that it is, in fact, the virtual drive that is corrupted? How do you know this?
I'm 100% sure it's the virtual drive because the file that contains virtual drive is MISSING from the filesystem. The bootloader will actually still load the kernel as that is not stored in the virtual drive.

* Do you have, and are you able to boot from a properly formatted USB drive?
* If not, are you able to burn and boot from CDs?
My computer can boot windows. I don't have any liveCD's or and bootable USB devices here. Getting burnable CD's /DVD's is a challenge because there aren't any trustworthy computer stores that I know of. Getting an ISO is also a challenge due to a 256 kbps or less connection. Even if I use Damn Small Linux which is a 50mb download, I don't have anywhere to PUT the files once I get them from the second HD. The invisible HD was 500gb and my primary HD is a 320 GB.

If I boot my computer normally (SATA mode), the second HD doesn't even show up in device manager. I have to switch to IDE mode in order for the HD to show up to any OS, including linux. I think I might have fucked up the SATA controller on the mobo when I tried to hide one of the HD's. (didn't want customs looking at my shit)

Also, I left my windows CD back in the US, the only disk I have with me is the nuke the OS and restore everything disk.
At this point, I'm considering the higher-risk route of downloading Ubuntu and re-running WUBI to get the system working again. I really wish I knew how WUBI does it's magic to create the virtual filesystem and run the Ubuntu installer on that.

At this point it seems your out of options. The only one I can think of would be to download a lightweight distro and UNetbootin or something similar and boot from that every time you want to access the files (but you'd probably lose a gui on a lightweight distro so you'd have to do cli stuff and then reboot into windows to use the files).


They use a Loopback Virtual Partition (it mounted like an iso, but writable) - not sure how similar it is to other kinds of virtual partitions, but that should get you started.

What do you think the odds of being able to receive something in the mail are? I wouldn't be opposed to sending you some bootable CDs to help you out.

This is probably a stupid question, but when you go to Drive Management (Right click My Computer, Manage, etc) you don't see the second drive do you?

Also, I could be wrong, but I've never been able to access a physical disk from any OS if its not showing up in the BIOS.

Not sure what your resources are over there but one other option might be to get an external usb enclosure for you drive, physically remove the disk, stick it in the usb enclosure and mount it natively in windows, if the partition you are looking for on the second drive is NTFS you could probably skip all the linux stuff. The enclosures for PATA drives are around $20 bucks, I can't imagine SATA are much more. Depending on whether you can get your hands on one of these, this might be your best option.

You'd be looking for a 2.5" SATA enclosure with USB, something like these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817707121
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817145031

It takes well over one month to receive anything in the mail here, and I believe they search and remove any CD/DVDs that come in the mail before I get it. I am really starting to miss the freedom I have back in the USA.

Also, thanks for that link Kitten. I'm gonna see if it can do anything for me.

As for Fomenta's question, I have to tweak a bios setting before the disk is visible. However, tweaking the bios setting causes Windows to be unbootable. There's almost ZERO chance of me getting a USB enclosure here in a timely manner, especially a SATA one. From what I've seen, India is at least 2 years behind us in high-tech stuff. I'm even having a lot of trouble finding an HDMI cable or burnable DVD's / burnable CD's. (smuggling them into the campus is a lot easier then mailing them)

Gonna try to download the ISO for Ubuntu over the weekend.

PM me your address -- what's the worst that could happen?