[ale] grub rescue

[John Pilman]

This may turn into my weekend project. I got in a hurry when my
laptop was booting. It dual boots Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.10. While
booting I bumped the keyboard and I think it started a Windows
Recovery partition. I waited and then exited when presented with that
choice, now I get:
'error: no such partition'
grub rescue>

The ls command returns:
(hd0) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos4) (hd0,msdos3) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos1)

When I boot Ubuntu from a live USB and look at gparted I see:
/dev/sdb1 ntfs PQMSERVICE 13 GiB diag
/dev/sdb2 ntfs SYSTEM RESERVED 100 MiB boot
/dev/sdb3 ntfs 94 GiB
/dev/sdb4 extended 190 GiB
unallocated unallocated 185 GiB
/dev/sdb5 linux-swap 5.86 GiB

I'm guessing my data is in the part marked unallocated. Here's my question:
Since I installed Ubuntu with encryption, would I be better off trying
to mount that partition and look for my data or
would you suggest I try to recreate or resurrect grub and its associated table.

Also, I'm looking at trying 'testdisk' but the instructions tell you
to use the one for your OS. I did not see specific instructions for
dual boot PCs. Does anyone have a relevant hint here?


...John

[John Pilman]

I am re-sending this because I don't think my last attempt at this
post was successful. I apologize if you are receiving it twice.

I got in a hurry when my laptop was booting. It dual boots Windows 7
and Ubuntu 10.10. While
booting I bumped the keyboard and I think it started a Windows
Recovery partition. I waited and then exited when presented with that
choice, now I get:
'error: no such partition'
grub rescue>

The ls command returns:
(hd0) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos4) (hd0,msdos3) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos1)

When I boot Ubuntu from a live USB and look at gparted I see:
/dev/sdb1 ntfs PQMSERVICE 13 GiB diag
/dev/sdb2 ntfs SYSTEM RESERVED 100 MiB boot
/dev/sdb3 ntfs 94 GiB
/dev/sdb4 extended 190 GiB
unallocated unallocated 185 GiB
/dev/sdb5 linux-swap 5.86 GiB

I'm guessing my data is in the part marked unallocated. Here's my question:
Since I installed Ubuntu with encryption, would I be better off trying
to mount that partition and look for my data or
would you suggest I try to recreate or resurrect grub and its associated table.

Also, I'm looking at trying 'testdisk' but the instructions tell you
to use the one for your OS. I did not see specific instructions for
dual boot PCs. Does anyone have a relevant hint here?

[Michael Trausch]

I will take a look at this more when I get home... but, do you have the
partition table as it was beforehand? If so, you can use sfdisk to
re-create. Otherwise, we need to look at the EBRs in the extended area.

This is why I hate MBR partition tables, by the way.

You should try running a utility to detect the partition, but don't count
on it working; assume all is lost and hope for the best. Since it is
encrypted it will be hard if not impossible to detect.

--
Sent from my Ice Cream Sandwich!

Post by John Pilman
I am re-sending this because I don't think my last attempt at this
post was successful. I apologize if you are receiving it twice.
I got in a hurry when my laptop was booting. It dual boots Windows 7
and Ubuntu 10.10. While
booting I bumped the keyboard and I think it started a Windows
Recovery partition. I waited and then exited when presented with that
'error: no such partition'
grub rescue>
(hd0) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos4) (hd0,msdos3) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos1)
/dev/sdb1 ntfs PQMSERVICE 13 GiB diag
/dev/sdb2 ntfs SYSTEM RESERVED 100 MiB boot
/dev/sdb3 ntfs 94 GiB
/dev/sdb4 extended 190 GiB
unallocated unallocated 185 GiB
/dev/sdb5 linux-swap 5.86 GiB
Since I installed Ubuntu with encryption, would I be better off trying
to mount that partition and look for my data or
would you suggest I try to recreate or resurrect grub and its associated table.
Also, I'm looking at trying 'testdisk' but the instructions tell you
to use the one for your OS. I did not see specific instructions for
dual boot PCs. Does anyone have a relevant hint here?
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

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[Mike Thornton]

Try the command 'update-grub' . If that doesn't fix it see
CreatBootPartitionAfterInstall
<https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CreateBootPartitionAfterInstall>
( https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CreateBootPartitionAfterInstall )

Post by John Pilman
I am re-sending this because I don't think my last attempt at this
post was successful. I apologize if you are receiving it twice.
I got in a hurry when my laptop was booting. It dual boots Windows 7
and Ubuntu 10.10. While
booting I bumped the keyboard and I think it started a Windows
Recovery partition. I waited and then exited when presented with that
'error: no such partition'
grub rescue>
(hd0) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos4) (hd0,msdos3) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos1)
/dev/sdb1 ntfs PQMSERVICE 13 GiB diag
/dev/sdb2 ntfs SYSTEM RESERVED 100 MiB boot
/dev/sdb3 ntfs 94 GiB
/dev/sdb4 extended 190 GiB
unallocated unallocated 185 GiB
/dev/sdb5 linux-swap 5.86 GiB
Since I installed Ubuntu with encryption, would I be better off trying
to mount that partition and look for my data or
would you suggest I try to recreate or resurrect grub and its associated table.
Also, I'm looking at trying 'testdisk' but the instructions tell you
to use the one for your OS. I did not see specific instructions for
dual boot PCs. Does anyone have a relevant hint here?
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

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[Michael Trausch]

That's not going to help if the root partition is not in the partition
table, though.

Additional questions for the OP: what partitioning utility was used to
create the partition? Also, you said that the partition was encrypted, but
if that is the case I assume you had to give the system a key at boot time
before the kernel could even be loaded, is that correct?

--
Sent from my Ice Cream Sandwich!

Post by Mike Thornton
Try the command 'update-grub' . If that doesn't fix it see
CreatBootPartitionAfterInstall<https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CreateBootPartitionAfterInstall>
( https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CreateBootPartitionAfterInstall )
I am re-sending this because I don't think my last attempt at this
post was successful. I apologize if you are receiving it twice.
I got in a hurry when my laptop was booting. It dual boots Windows 7
and Ubuntu 10.10. While
booting I bumped the keyboard and I think it started a Windows
Recovery partition. I waited and then exited when presented with that
'error: no such partition'
grub rescue>
(hd0) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos4) (hd0,msdos3) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos1)
/dev/sdb1 ntfs PQMSERVICE 13 GiB diag
/dev/sdb2 ntfs SYSTEM RESERVED 100 MiB boot
/dev/sdb3 ntfs 94 GiB
/dev/sdb4 extended 190 GiB
unallocated unallocated 185 GiB
/dev/sdb5 linux-swap 5.86 GiB
Since I installed Ubuntu with encryption, would I be better off trying
to mount that partition and look for my data or
would you suggest I try to recreate or resurrect grub and its associated table.
Also, I'm looking at trying 'testdisk' but the instructions tell you
to use the one for your OS. I did not see specific instructions for
dual boot PCs. Does anyone have a relevant hint here?
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing listAle at ale.orghttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists athttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

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[Derek Atkins]

A related question: Where is your /boot partition?

Assuming you are using dm-crypt and LUKS, then most likely your /boot
would be unencrypted and your /root would be encrypted -- and it would ask
you for a password to boot up. However I don't see a /boot partition.
Was it part of the extended partition?

My guess is that your /boot partition is hidden somewhere in your extended
partition map and it got destroyed at the same time as your root
partition. Or did you have a combined boot/root partition, in which case
I have to ask how it was encrypted? But if you did have two partitions
then unless you want to spend lots of hours scrounging your disk to *find*
those partitions you may very well be out of luck.

Right now I highly doubt that any linux recovery is going to find your
data, because the disk would tell the system that "there ain't no data
here". What I would do, before you go futzing with anything, is make a
complete backup of your disk. Get another disk and do a dd from this disk
to the other disk. Then you can start futzing with the partition tables
and, worst case, recover from the backup in case thingsdon't work out. My
fear would be if you start futzing with the extended partition table and
get it wrong you might end up overwriting real data.

Once you make your copy, try making all your unallocated space into a
single linux partition. Then you can dd the first few MB off into a file
(running a RAMDISK rescue environment, of course) and use 'file' to see if
you got it right. Were you using LVM? Then from there you might be able
to get lucky and find your partition endpoints. But honestly, I suspect
you're going to have a hard time recovering if you had multiple partitions
in that extended space.

Good Luck!

-derek

Post by Michael Trausch
That's not going to help if the root partition is not in the partition
table, though.
Additional questions for the OP: what partitioning utility was used to
create the partition? Also, you said that the partition was encrypted, but
if that is the case I assume you had to give the system a key at boot time
before the kernel could even be loaded, is that correct?
--
Sent from my Ice Cream Sandwich!

Post by Mike Thornton
Try the command 'update-grub' . If that doesn't fix it see
CreatBootPartitionAfterInstall<https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CreateBootPartitionAfterInstall>
( https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CreateBootPartitionAfterInstall )
I am re-sending this because I don't think my last attempt at this
post was successful. I apologize if you are receiving it twice.
I got in a hurry when my laptop was booting. It dual boots Windows 7
and Ubuntu 10.10. While
booting I bumped the keyboard and I think it started a Windows
Recovery partition. I waited and then exited when presented with that
'error: no such partition'
grub rescue>
(hd0) (hd0,msdos5) (hd0,msdos4) (hd0,msdos3) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos1)
/dev/sdb1 ntfs PQMSERVICE 13 GiB diag
/dev/sdb2 ntfs SYSTEM RESERVED 100 MiB boot
/dev/sdb3 ntfs 94 GiB
/dev/sdb4 extended 190 GiB
unallocated unallocated 185 GiB
/dev/sdb5 linux-swap 5.86 GiB
Since I installed Ubuntu with encryption, would I be better off trying
to mount that partition and look for my data or
would you suggest I try to recreate or resurrect grub and its associated table.
Also, I'm looking at trying 'testdisk' but the instructions tell you
to use the one for your OS. I did not see specific instructions for
dual boot PCs. Does anyone have a relevant hint here?
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing listAle at ale.orghttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists
athttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

[Jim Lynch]

Post by Derek Atkins
Once you make your copy, try making all your unallocated space into a
single linux partition. Then you can dd the first few MB off into a file
(running a RAMDISK rescue environment, of course) and use 'file' to see if
you got it right. Were you using LVM? Then from there you might be able
to get lucky and find your partition endpoints.

Since you can now with grub2 boot from LVM that might be the answer.
I'm surprised that grub didn't recognize that. I'd find a live cd or
Knopix cd that understands LVM and see if the partition contains LVM
volumes before I did anything rash.

Jim.

[John Pilman]

Thanks for the ideas. I am starting with a second hard drive and the
dd command as Derek said and I am going to try to recreate how I go
into this mess. Understanding, at his point, is more valuable than
the little bit of data since my last last backup.

To partially answer some questions:
The disk started with Windows 7 and I installed Ubuntu 10.10 with dual
boot. So the partition utility is the one used during the Ubuntu
install. Also, I vaguely remember a question about encryption during
that process. I can't say for sure whether the partition or just the
home directory was encrypted.
Also, I'm not sure where the boot record was.

If possible, I will reinstall everything and then find those answers.
At, the speed this dd is going, I have some free time to do more research.
...John

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 7:12 PM, Jim Lynch

Post by Jim Lynch

Post by Derek Atkins
Once you make your copy, try making all your unallocated space into a
single linux partition. ?Then you can dd the first few MB off into a file
(running a RAMDISK rescue environment, of course) and use 'file' to see if
you got it right. ?Were you using LVM? ?Then from there you might be able
to get lucky and find your partition endpoints.

Since you can now with grub2 boot from LVM that might be the answer.
I'm surprised that grub didn't recognize that. ?I'd find a live cd or
Knopix cd that understands LVM and see if the partition contains LVM
volumes before I did anything rash.
Jim.
_______________________________________________

[John Pilman]

Here's an update on my progress with the scrambled partition table and
encrypted home directory.
Using dd I copied the hard drive and did the rest of this on the copy.
I ran testdisk from a live boot usb flash drive and was able
re-identify the unallocated partition as a linux partition and write
the partition table.
After a boot or two, gparted saw the partition as sda5.
Long story short for now, Ubuntu 11.04 includes the ultility
encryptfs-recover-private which was able to mount the encrypted
/home/john and I have now copied my files.
Caveat #1 - it took me a while to learn that my live boot usb Ubuntu
11.04 had to be 64 bit since my original partition was 64 bit.
Caveat #2 - some of these steps were very time consuming.

I next plan to try to see if I can make the hard drive bootable again.

...John

Post by John Pilman
Thanks for the ideas. I am starting with a second hard drive and the
dd command as Derek said and I am going to try to recreate how I go
into this mess. ?Understanding, at his point, is more valuable than
the little bit of data since my last last backup.
The disk started with Windows 7 and I installed Ubuntu 10.10 with dual
boot. ?So the partition utility is the one used during the Ubuntu
install. ?Also, I vaguely remember a question about encryption during
that process. ?I can't say for sure whether the partition or just the
home directory was encrypted.
Also, I'm not sure where the boot record was.
If possible, I will reinstall everything and then find those answers.
At, the speed this dd is going, I have some free time to do more research.
...John
On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 7:12 PM, Jim Lynch

Post by Jim Lynch

Post by Derek Atkins
Once you make your copy, try making all your unallocated space into a
single linux partition. ?Then you can dd the first few MB off into a file
(running a RAMDISK rescue environment, of course) and use 'file' to see if
you got it right. ?Were you using LVM? ?Then from there you might be able
to get lucky and find your partition endpoints.

Since you can now with grub2 boot from LVM that might be the answer.
I'm surprised that grub didn't recognize that. ?I'd find a live cd or
Knopix cd that understands LVM and see if the partition contains LVM
volumes before I did anything rash.
Jim.
_______________________________________________

[Rich Faulkner]

...and to think...Richard Stallman professed the use of "no password" as
a password to keep systems open and free. Unfortunately the word
"ethical" is lost on too many in the world thus we are pressed to
encrypt our file systems.

Glad you got your partition mounted and files copied!

As for making the drive bootable again...reinstall GRUB?

Rich

Post by John Pilman
Here's an update on my progress with the scrambled partition table and
encrypted home directory.
Using dd I copied the hard drive and did the rest of this on the copy.
I ran testdisk from a live boot usb flash drive and was able
re-identify the unallocated partition as a linux partition and write
the partition table.
After a boot or two, gparted saw the partition as sda5.
Long story short for now, Ubuntu 11.04 includes the ultility
encryptfs-recover-private which was able to mount the encrypted
/home/john and I have now copied my files.
Caveat #1 - it took me a while to learn that my live boot usb Ubuntu
11.04 had to be 64 bit since my original partition was 64 bit.
Caveat #2 - some of these steps were very time consuming.
I next plan to try to see if I can make the hard drive bootable again.
...John

Post by John Pilman
Thanks for the ideas. I am starting with a second hard drive and the
dd command as Derek said and I am going to try to recreate how I go
into this mess. Understanding, at his point, is more valuable than
the little bit of data since my last last backup.
The disk started with Windows 7 and I installed Ubuntu 10.10 with dual
boot. So the partition utility is the one used during the Ubuntu
install. Also, I vaguely remember a question about encryption during
that process. I can't say for sure whether the partition or just the
home directory was encrypted.
Also, I'm not sure where the boot record was.
If possible, I will reinstall everything and then find those answers.
At, the speed this dd is going, I have some free time to do more research.
...John
On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 7:12 PM, Jim Lynch

Post by Jim Lynch

Post by Derek Atkins
Once you make your copy, try making all your unallocated space into a
single linux partition. Then you can dd the first few MB off into a file
(running a RAMDISK rescue environment, of course) and use 'file' to see if
you got it right. Were you using LVM? Then from there you might be able
to get lucky and find your partition endpoints.

Since you can now with grub2 boot from LVM that might be the answer.
I'm surprised that grub didn't recognize that. I'd find a live cd or
Knopix cd that understands LVM and see if the partition contains LVM
volumes before I did anything rash.
Jim.
_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

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[Michael Campbell]

FWIW, after some scary episodes with dual booting and Windows' general
anti-social behavior with it, I've moved to running a Windows host and my
Ubuntu "machines" in a VM. A Linux host with a Windows as a VM also works,
but for my use not as well.

With sufficient hardware, they run pretty well together, and I get the best
(or at least the necessary bits) from both worlds, simultaneously, and I
can even run my VM off a USB drive and carry it around with me and have my
complete environment wherever I go.

I use VirtualBox as my VM container. No real problems so far to speak of.
I'm a Java server side developer, so am running WebSphere tools and Oracle
on the VM as my day to day routine.

**
...and to think...Richard Stallman professed the use of "no password" as a
password to keep systems open and free. Unfortunately the word "ethical"
is lost on too many in the world thus we are pressed to encrypt our file
systems.
Glad you got your partition mounted and files copied!
As for making the drive bootable again...reinstall GRUB?
Rich
Here's an update on my progress with the scrambled partition table and
encrypted home directory.
Using dd I copied the hard drive and did the rest of this on the copy.
I ran testdisk from a live boot usb flash drive and was able
re-identify the unallocated partition as a linux partition and write
the partition table.
After a boot or two, gparted saw the partition as sda5.
Long story short for now, Ubuntu 11.04 includes the ultility
encryptfs-recover-private which was able to mount the encrypted
/home/john and I have now copied my files.
Caveat #1 - it took me a while to learn that my live boot usb Ubuntu
11.04 had to be 64 bit since my original partition was 64 bit.
Caveat #2 - some of these steps were very time consuming.
I next plan to try to see if I can make the hard drive bootable again.
...John

Post by John Pilman
Thanks for the ideas. I am starting with a second hard drive and the
dd command as Derek said and I am going to try to recreate how I go
into this mess. Understanding, at his point, is more valuable than
the little bit of data since my last last backup.
The disk started with Windows 7 and I installed Ubuntu 10.10 with dual
boot. So the partition utility is the one used during the Ubuntu
install. Also, I vaguely remember a question about encryption during
that process. I can't say for sure whether the partition or just the
home directory was encrypted.
Also, I'm not sure where the boot record was.
If possible, I will reinstall everything and then find those answers.
At, the speed this dd is going, I have some free time to do more research.
...John
On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 7:12 PM, Jim Lynch

Post by Jim Lynch

Post by Derek Atkins
Once you make your copy, try making all your unallocated space into a
single linux partition. Then you can dd the first few MB off into a file
(running a RAMDISK rescue environment, of course) and use 'file' to see if
you got it right. Were you using LVM? Then from there you might be able
to get lucky and find your partition endpoints.

Since you can now with grub2 boot from LVM that might be the answer.
I'm surprised that grub didn't recognize that. I'd find a live cd or
Knopix cd that understands LVM and see if the partition contains LVM
volumes before I did anything rash.
Jim.
_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing listAle at ale.orghttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists athttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

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[Michael Trausch]

I know that I for one do not trust Windows for running on bare hardware.
It is constrained to a VM on my system, under VirtualBox.

It works pretty well there. As best as I can tell, native speed. In truth,
probably less, but not noticeably so.

--
Sent from my Ice Cream Sandwich-powered HTC G2
Please excuse any typos.
On Feb 21, 2012 10:49 PM, "Michael Campbell" <michael.campbell at gmail.com>

Post by Michael Campbell
FWIW, after some scary episodes with dual booting and Windows' general
anti-social behavior with it, I've moved to running a Windows host and my
Ubuntu "machines" in a VM. A Linux host with a Windows as a VM also works,
but for my use not as well.
With sufficient hardware, they run pretty well together, and I get the
best (or at least the necessary bits) from both worlds, simultaneously, and
I can even run my VM off a USB drive and carry it around with me and have
my complete environment wherever I go.
I use VirtualBox as my VM container. No real problems so far to speak of.
I'm a Java server side developer, so am running WebSphere tools and Oracle
on the VM as my day to day routine.

Post by Rich Faulkner
**
...and to think...Richard Stallman professed the use of "no password" as
a password to keep systems open and free. Unfortunately the word "ethical"
is lost on too many in the world thus we are pressed to encrypt our file
systems.
Glad you got your partition mounted and files copied!
As for making the drive bootable again...reinstall GRUB?
Rich
Here's an update on my progress with the scrambled partition table and
encrypted home directory.
Using dd I copied the hard drive and did the rest of this on the copy.
I ran testdisk from a live boot usb flash drive and was able
re-identify the unallocated partition as a linux partition and write
the partition table.
After a boot or two, gparted saw the partition as sda5.
Long story short for now, Ubuntu 11.04 includes the ultility
encryptfs-recover-private which was able to mount the encrypted
/home/john and I have now copied my files.
Caveat #1 - it took me a while to learn that my live boot usb Ubuntu
11.04 had to be 64 bit since my original partition was 64 bit.
Caveat #2 - some of these steps were very time consuming.
I next plan to try to see if I can make the hard drive bootable again.
...John

Post by John Pilman
Thanks for the ideas. I am starting with a second hard drive and the
dd command as Derek said and I am going to try to recreate how I go
into this mess. Understanding, at his point, is more valuable than
the little bit of data since my last last backup.
The disk started with Windows 7 and I installed Ubuntu 10.10 with dual
boot. So the partition utility is the one used during the Ubuntu
install. Also, I vaguely remember a question about encryption during
that process. I can't say for sure whether the partition or just the
home directory was encrypted.
Also, I'm not sure where the boot record was.
If possible, I will reinstall everything and then find those answers.
At, the speed this dd is going, I have some free time to do more research.
...John
On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 7:12 PM, Jim Lynch

Post by Jim Lynch

Post by Derek Atkins
Once you make your copy, try making all your unallocated space into a
single linux partition. Then you can dd the first few MB off into a file
(running a RAMDISK rescue environment, of course) and use 'file' to see if
you got it right. Were you using LVM? Then from there you might be able
to get lucky and find your partition endpoints.

Since you can now with grub2 boot from LVM that might be the answer.
I'm surprised that grub didn't recognize that. I'd find a live cd or
Knopix cd that understands LVM and see if the partition contains LVM
volumes before I did anything rash.
Jim.
_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing listAle at ale.orghttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists athttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

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[Michael Campbell]

That depends largely on what you do.

As I mentioned, I'm a developer using IBM tools, and Oracle. IBM's stuff
is java based, and is horribly bloaty and memory hungry. When I'm testing
and running the apps I'm writing, it's doing a lot of (database) I/O. When
I'm coding them, it's doing a lot of filesystem I/O compiling and such.

Windows I/O is pretty bad to begin with, and that's exacerbated on a VM
(and even more so when using a compressed NTFS filesystem, or using
VirtualBox's "shared folders" functionality). So for me, there's a quite
noticeable speed difference when Windows is in a VM, even when I give it a
full 4G of RAM.

I'm not sure I get the "trust" issue; the problems I've seen on Windows
have been almost exclusively "bad user behavior" which can be done equally
on a VM or not, but undoubtedly my experiences and context are wildly
different from yours, so do what works for you of course. =)

All that said I'm still amazed at the VM technology at all; no matter
what's being run as guest or host. Everything mostly just works; I find
it all quite amazing. Every day I find wonder at how far in the future I
live now, and what fantastic things my son will see in his lifetime.

Post by Michael Trausch
I know that I for one do not trust Windows for running on bare hardware.
It is constrained to a VM on my system, under VirtualBox.
It works pretty well there. As best as I can tell, native speed. In truth,
probably less, but not noticeably so.
--
Sent from my Ice Cream Sandwich-powered HTC G2

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[Rich Faulkner]

When I returned to Linux I tried dual booting 9.10 w/X64 but GRUB2 soon
got the better of me. I've never really gotten the hang of it (but
haven't spent that much time with it either). Having several HDD in
that former system; I left X64 on one disk (and a borked GRUB2) and
installed Fedora 12 on a separate HDD w/GRUB (something I was more
comfortable with). Thus I got my Fedora installation running on a
separate (physical) disk and GRUB chain-loading X64 from the Windows
disk. Then I set the BIOS to boot the GRUB disk and thus I washed my
hands of it and rarely booted into XP. (My noob approach to a
workaround until such a time that I built a new machine).

New machine has now been in service for a long while and I'm running
ONLY 11.04 on it and am quite happy. I do run a Virtualbox VM of XP for
some work that I do for a museum in Colorado in CorelDraw 10; but that's
about how far I am willing to let Windows run on my machines anymore.
Unfortunately, our studio requires baremetal installs of Windows for
hardware support to our specialized broadcast audio cards. Digigram
doesn't have Linux drivers for their PCX924 cards thus we're stuck with
"Bill". We at least keep them offline and do all online work with
Ubuntu boxes.

Do we have any good GRUB2 pros in the group? Could be a good topic for
some of us at a monthly meeting. Just a thought.....

Rich in Lilburn

Post by Michael Campbell
FWIW, after some scary episodes with dual booting and Windows' general
anti-social behavior with it, I've moved to running a Windows host and
my Ubuntu "machines" in a VM. A Linux host with a Windows as a VM
also works, but for my use not as well.
With sufficient hardware, they run pretty well together, and I get the
best (or at least the necessary bits) from both worlds,
simultaneously, and I can even run my VM off a USB drive and carry it
around with me and have my complete environment wherever I go.
I use VirtualBox as my VM container. No real problems so far to speak
of. I'm a Java server side developer, so am running WebSphere tools
and Oracle on the VM as my day to day routine.
...and to think...Richard Stallman professed the use of "no
password" as a password to keep systems open and free.
Unfortunately the word "ethical" is lost on too many in the
world thus we are pressed to encrypt our file systems.
Glad you got your partition mounted and files copied!
As for making the drive bootable again...reinstall GRUB?
Rich

Post by John Pilman
Here's an update on my progress with the scrambled partition table and
encrypted home directory.
Using dd I copied the hard drive and did the rest of this on the copy.
I ran testdisk from a live boot usb flash drive and was able
re-identify the unallocated partition as a linux partition and write
the partition table.
After a boot or two, gparted saw the partition as sda5.
Long story short for now, Ubuntu 11.04 includes the ultility
encryptfs-recover-private which was able to mount the encrypted
/home/john and I have now copied my files.
Caveat #1 - it took me a while to learn that my live boot usb Ubuntu
11.04 had to be 64 bit since my original partition was 64 bit.
Caveat #2 - some of these steps were very time consuming.
I next plan to try to see if I can make the hard drive bootable again.
...John

Post by John Pilman
Thanks for the ideas. I am starting with a second hard drive and the
dd command as Derek said and I am going to try to recreate how I go
into this mess. Understanding, at his point, is more valuable than
the little bit of data since my last last backup.
The disk started with Windows 7 and I installed Ubuntu 10.10 with dual
boot. So the partition utility is the one used during the Ubuntu
install. Also, I vaguely remember a question about encryption during
that process. I can't say for sure whether the partition or just the
home directory was encrypted.
Also, I'm not sure where the boot record was.
If possible, I will reinstall everything and then find those answers.
At, the speed this dd is going, I have some free time to do more research.
...John
On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 7:12 PM, Jim Lynch

Post by Jim Lynch

Post by Derek Atkins
Once you make your copy, try making all your unallocated space into a
single linux partition. Then you can dd the first few MB off into a file
(running a RAMDISK rescue environment, of course) and use 'file' to see if
you got it right. Were you using LVM? Then from there you might be able
to get lucky and find your partition endpoints.

Since you can now with grub2 boot from LVM that might be the answer.
I'm surprised that grub didn't recognize that. I'd find a live cd or
Knopix cd that understands LVM and see if the partition contains LVM
volumes before I did anything rash.
Jim.
_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
_______________________________________________
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Ale at ale.org
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http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

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[Michael Trausch]

I can present on it again at some point, if desired.

I actually know of one other group of people that would be interested in
the video of it as well... there was a thread on gentoo-user about grub vs.
grub2 recently there.

--
Sent from my Ice Cream Sandwich-powered HTC G2
Please excuse any typos.

Post by Rich Faulkner
**
When I returned to Linux I tried dual booting 9.10 w/X64 but GRUB2 soon
got the better of me. I've never really gotten the hang of it (but haven't
spent that much time with it either). Having several HDD in that former
system; I left X64 on one disk (and a borked GRUB2) and installed Fedora 12
on a separate HDD w/GRUB (something I was more comfortable with). Thus I
got my Fedora installation running on a separate (physical) disk and GRUB
chain-loading X64 from the Windows disk. Then I set the BIOS to boot the
GRUB disk and thus I washed my hands of it and rarely booted into XP. (My
noob approach to a workaround until such a time that I built a new
machine).
New machine has now been in service for a long while and I'm running ONLY
11.04 on it and am quite happy. I do run a Virtualbox VM of XP for some
work that I do for a museum in Colorado in CorelDraw 10; but that's about
how far I am willing to let Windows run on my machines anymore.
Unfortunately, our studio requires baremetal installs of Windows for
hardware support to our specialized broadcast audio cards. Digigram
doesn't have Linux drivers for their PCX924 cards thus we're stuck with
"Bill". We at least keep them offline and do all online work with Ubuntu
boxes.
Do we have any good GRUB2 pros in the group? Could be a good topic for
some of us at a monthly meeting. Just a thought.....
Rich in Lilburn
FWIW, after some scary episodes with dual booting and Windows' general
anti-social behavior with it, I've moved to running a Windows host and my
Ubuntu "machines" in a VM. A Linux host with a Windows as a VM also works,
but for my use not as well.
With sufficient hardware, they run pretty well together, and I get the
best (or at least the necessary bits) from both worlds, simultaneously, and
I can even run my VM off a USB drive and carry it around with me and have
my complete environment wherever I go.
I use VirtualBox as my VM container. No real problems so far to speak
of. I'm a Java server side developer, so am running WebSphere tools and
Oracle on the VM as my day to day routine.
...and to think...Richard Stallman professed the use of "no password" as
a password to keep systems open and free. Unfortunately the word "ethical"
is lost on too many in the world thus we are pressed to encrypt our file
systems.
Glad you got your partition mounted and files copied!
As for making the drive bootable again...reinstall GRUB?
Rich
Here's an update on my progress with the scrambled partition table and
encrypted home directory.
Using dd I copied the hard drive and did the rest of this on the copy.
I ran testdisk from a live boot usb flash drive and was able
re-identify the unallocated partition as a linux partition and write
the partition table.
After a boot or two, gparted saw the partition as sda5.
Long story short for now, Ubuntu 11.04 includes the ultility
encryptfs-recover-private which was able to mount the encrypted
/home/john and I have now copied my files.
Caveat #1 - it took me a while to learn that my live boot usb Ubuntu
11.04 had to be 64 bit since my original partition was 64 bit.
Caveat #2 - some of these steps were very time consuming.
I next plan to try to see if I can make the hard drive bootable again.
...John

Post by John Pilman
Thanks for the ideas. I am starting with a second hard drive and the
dd command as Derek said and I am going to try to recreate how I go
into this mess. Understanding, at his point, is more valuable than
the little bit of data since my last last backup.
The disk started with Windows 7 and I installed Ubuntu 10.10 with dual
boot. So the partition utility is the one used during the Ubuntu
install. Also, I vaguely remember a question about encryption during
that process. I can't say for sure whether the partition or just the
home directory was encrypted.
Also, I'm not sure where the boot record was.
If possible, I will reinstall everything and then find those answers.
At, the speed this dd is going, I have some free time to do more research.
...John
On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 7:12 PM, Jim Lynch

Post by Jim Lynch

Post by Derek Atkins
Once you make your copy, try making all your unallocated space into a
single linux partition. Then you can dd the first few MB off into a file
(running a RAMDISK rescue environment, of course) and use 'file' to see if
you got it right. Were you using LVM? Then from there you might be able
to get lucky and find your partition endpoints.

Since you can now with grub2 boot from LVM that might be the answer.
I'm surprised that grub didn't recognize that. I'd find a live cd or
Knopix cd that understands LVM and see if the partition contains LVM
volumes before I did anything rash.
Jim.
_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing listAle at ale.orghttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists athttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing listAle at ale.orghttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists athttp://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

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[Rich Faulkner]

I don't think the ALE Central Meeting has had this as a topic for a
while.

Michael....you have link(s) to the video you speak of?

Rich

Post by Michael Trausch
I can present on it again at some point, if desired.
I actually know of one other group of people that would be interested
in the video of it as well... there was a thread on gentoo-user about
grub vs. grub2 recently there.
--
Sent from my Ice Cream Sandwich-powered HTC G2
Please excuse any typos.
When I returned to Linux I tried dual booting 9.10 w/X64 but
GRUB2 soon got the better of me. I've never really gotten the
hang of it (but haven't spent that much time with it either).
Having several HDD in that former system; I left X64 on one
disk (and a borked GRUB2) and installed Fedora 12 on a
separate HDD w/GRUB (something I was more comfortable with).
Thus I got my Fedora installation running on a separate
(physical) disk and GRUB chain-loading X64 from the Windows
disk. Then I set the BIOS to boot the GRUB disk and thus I
washed my hands of it and rarely booted into XP. (My noob
approach to a workaround until such a time that I built a new
machine).
New machine has now been in service for a long while and I'm
running ONLY 11.04 on it and am quite happy. I do run a
Virtualbox VM of XP for some work that I do for a museum in
Colorado in CorelDraw 10; but that's about how far I am
willing to let Windows run on my machines anymore.
Unfortunately, our studio requires baremetal installs of
Windows for hardware support to our specialized broadcast
audio cards. Digigram doesn't have Linux drivers for their
PCX924 cards thus we're stuck with "Bill". We at least keep
them offline and do all online work with Ubuntu boxes.
Do we have any good GRUB2 pros in the group? Could be a good
topic for some of us at a monthly meeting. Just a
thought.....
Rich in Lilburn

Post by Michael Campbell
FWIW, after some scary episodes with dual booting and
Windows' general anti-social behavior with it, I've moved to
running a Windows host and my Ubuntu "machines" in a VM. A
Linux host with a Windows as a VM also works, but for my use
not as well.
With sufficient hardware, they run pretty well together, and
I get the best (or at least the necessary bits) from both
worlds, simultaneously, and I can even run my VM off a USB
drive and carry it around with me and have my complete
environment wherever I go.
I use VirtualBox as my VM container. No real problems so
far to speak of. I'm a Java server side developer, so am
running WebSphere tools and Oracle on the VM as my day to
day routine.
On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 3:51 PM, Rich Faulkner
...and to think...Richard Stallman professed the use
of "no password" as a password to keep systems open
and free. Unfortunately the word "ethical" is lost
on too many in the world thus we are pressed to
encrypt our file systems.
Glad you got your partition mounted and files copied!
As for making the drive bootable again...reinstall
GRUB?
Rich

Post by John Pilman
Here's an update on my progress with the scrambled partition table and
encrypted home directory.
Using dd I copied the hard drive and did the rest of this on the copy.
I ran testdisk from a live boot usb flash drive and was able
re-identify the unallocated partition as a linux partition and write
the partition table.
After a boot or two, gparted saw the partition as sda5.
Long story short for now, Ubuntu 11.04 includes the ultility
encryptfs-recover-private which was able to mount the encrypted
/home/john and I have now copied my files.
Caveat #1 - it took me a while to learn that my live boot usb Ubuntu
11.04 had to be 64 bit since my original partition was 64 bit.
Caveat #2 - some of these steps were very time consuming.
I next plan to try to see if I can make the hard drive bootable again.
...John

Post by John Pilman
Thanks for the ideas. I am starting with a second hard drive and the
dd command as Derek said and I am going to try to recreate how I go
into this mess. Understanding, at his point, is more valuable than
the little bit of data since my last last backup.
The disk started with Windows 7 and I installed Ubuntu 10.10 with dual
boot. So the partition utility is the one used during the Ubuntu
install. Also, I vaguely remember a question about encryption during
that process. I can't say for sure whether the partition or just the
home directory was encrypted.
Also, I'm not sure where the boot record was.
If possible, I will reinstall everything and then find those answers.
At, the speed this dd is going, I have some free time to do more research.
...John
On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 7:12 PM, Jim Lynch

Post by Jim Lynch

Post by Derek Atkins
Once you make your copy, try making all your unallocated space into a
single linux partition. Then you can dd the first few MB off into a file
(running a RAMDISK rescue environment, of course) and use 'file' to see if
you got it right. Were you using LVM? Then from there you might be able
to get lucky and find your partition endpoints.

Since you can now with grub2 boot from LVM that might be the answer.
I'm surprised that grub didn't recognize that. I'd find a live cd or
Knopix cd that understands LVM and see if the partition contains LVM
volumes before I did anything rash.
Jim.
_______________________________________________

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
_______________________________________________
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Ale at ale.org
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[mike]

I don't think the ALE Central Meeting has had this as a topic for a while.
Michael....you have link(s) to the video you speak of?

I was unclear, sorry.

I don't think my presentation last time was recorded. But I would be
willing to present it again, and since Aaron?s back in the mix, it will
most likely be recorded when I do.

--- Mike
--
A man who reasons deliberately, manages it better after studying Logic
than he could before, if he is sincere about it and has common sense.
--- Carveth Read, ?Logic?

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[Rich Faulkner]

I for one would cheer at a topic on GRUB2; although that would be a bit
noob for most here I imagine.

Glad to hear Aaron is back in the mix...didn't know he was gone; but
I've been offline for a bit. Busy with life stuff and now getting back
into the swing of things...

RinL

Post by mike

I don't think the ALE Central Meeting has had this as a topic for a while.
Michael....you have link(s) to the video you speak of?

I was unclear, sorry.
I don't think my presentation last time was recorded. But I would be
willing to present it again, and since Aaron?s back in the mix, it will
most likely be recorded when I do.
--- Mike
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

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[Scott Castaline]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Post by Rich Faulkner
I for one would cheer at a topic on GRUB2; although that would be a
bit noob for most here I imagine.
Glad to hear Aaron is back in the mix...didn't know he was gone;
but I've been offline for a bit. Busy with life stuff and now
getting back into the swing of things...
RinL

+1 for GRUB2

Post by Rich Faulkner

Post by mike

I don't think the ALE Central Meeting has had this as a topic for a while.
Michael....you have link(s) to the video you speak of?

I was unclear, sorry.
I don't think my presentation last time was recorded. But I
would be willing to present it again, and since Aaron?s back in
the mix, it will most likely be recorded when I do.
--- Mike
_______________________________________________ Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org <mailto:Ale at ale.org>
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and
SCHOOLS lists at http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

_______________________________________________ Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale See JOBS,
ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo

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[John Pilman]

The company supplied PC has Windows 7 and Linux in a VirtualBox. I
tried it the other way around, but Windows always dragged with that
setup.

I don't have much use for a personal Windows machine. My laptop is
dual boot, mostly for the learning experience. That is also why I let
Ubuntu encrypt my home directory, not because I needed to secure my
family photos. And I did get an experience out of it.

By the way, boot-repair worked like a champ. I am not yet sure if it
needed testdisk to fix the partition first.
...John

On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 10:48 PM, Michael Campbell

Post by Michael Campbell
FWIW, after some scary episodes with dual booting and Windows' general
anti-social behavior with it, I've moved to running a Windows host and my
Ubuntu "machines" in a VM. ?A Linux host with a Windows as a VM also works,
but for my use not as well.
With sufficient hardware, they run pretty well together, and I get the best
(or at least the necessary bits) from both worlds, simultaneously, and I can
even run my VM off a USB drive and carry it around with me and have my
complete environment wherever I go.
I use VirtualBox as my VM container. ?No real problems so far to speak of.
?I'm a Java server side developer, so am running WebSphere tools and Oracle
on the VM as my day to day routine.