Desktop not working: I need my hard drive back!

Excellent news Nate!

I had to parachute into a client site and put out a fire ... on a Saturday ... with little sleep. They won't let me completely retire until I'm dead.

Please read the following and ask any questions that you might have. It's very rough and I think I have the correct information there, but still little sleep. If anything doesn't make sense to you, I'll see if it makes sense to me and rewrite it or explain it.

Did you refresh the Pmount window - I'm not sure if the window is dynamically updated. Probably a moot point now.

If you can see the data, there's a good chance that you can copy it, even if the source is read only.

You already know most of the instructions, but you might be doing things that don't have to be done, such as setting xxxxx or running the network wizrd when it pops up. These are things that someone might want to do under different circumstance - you're just using Lucid Puppy to copy data.

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These instructions were created using jumanji's Lucid Puppy way to recover files from a non-bootable computer thread as the basis.
In jumanji's thread, the user is instructed on how to recover data on the internal disk partition by copying the data to an external disk partition.
These instructions reverse the direction and copy data on an external disk partition to a internal disk partition.

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Recovering files on an external drive:

Connect the USB pendrive to a USB 2.0 port on the copy destination machine
Power-on, or restart, the machine to boot Lucid Puppy Linux.
Before Windows loads (black BIOS pre-load / startup screen)
Tap the Funtion key (Fkey) assigned to present the Boot Order menu. If Windows loads, you will have to restart the machine and try the Fkey again until you get the menu.
Once you see the boot devices, select the USB device that has Lucid Puppy Linux on it.
Lucid Puppy Linux begins it's load sequence and the loads the desktop.
Dismiss the Personalized Settings dialog without changes by pressing OK.

If a network dialog box is presented, dismiss that without changes by clicking on the X to close the window.

Disks that Lucid Puppy recognized are displayed in the lower left hand area of the desktop.
sda# are partitions on the internal drive
sdb# are partitions on the external drive
The letter is assigned to the drive or the port, the number is assigned to the partition
Your device list might include sdc, sdd, sde, sdf through sdz drives if they are connected to your machine and Lucid Puppy recognizes them.
If your external drive isn't 'listed' make sure that it is connected to a USB 2.0 port. The USB 3.0 driver on some machines is not recognized without additional configuration changes. You do not have to reboot Lucid Puppy, just connect the external drive to 2.0 port. The system should recognize the drive and display the partitions on it in the list.

Desktop with partitions on the internal drive listed, but only the Lucid Puppy boot pendrive external drive listed.

Desktop with partitions on the internal drive listed, and partitions on the external drive listed.

Determine the source partition and the destination partition for the copy data step.
1) The capacity of the partition is displayed when you hover over that device. You can use this information to decide which partitions to mount.
2) The internal drive partition you select will be the copy to destination
Left click on that device to mount and explore it
3) The external drive partition that you select will be the copy from source
Left click on that device to mount and explore it

Your desktop should show the two partitions you selected
as mounted (mounted partitions have a green 'on' light overlay on the icon)

and file system explorer windows open

If you did not previously create a folder on the internal destination partition to recover the data, you can create it now
Right click in the empty space of the internal drive window and select New > Directory.

Specify the name for the destination folder, such as RecoverData.

You are now ready to copy the folders/files from the source partition on the external drive that you selected to the destination folder on the internal drive.

Ctrl + left mouse click to select the folders/files in the source partition on the external drive
Keep the left mouse button pressed and drag the data to the destination folder on the internal drive
Release the mouse button

Select Copy from the operations menu to begin the process.

The copy operations status box displays what is being copied.

When the copy has completed, you can recover other data if it is on a different partition by following the instructions for each partition you need to access.

If there is no additional data to recover or you have copied everything then you are finished.
The data you needed to recover is on your internal hard drive.

Right click any partition in the lower left hand corner and select
Unount all mounted drives

Power-off your PC.
Menu > Shutdown > Power-off.

The Lucid Puppy shutdown prompts you to save the session, press right arrow key to select No and press ENTER.

Okay, it seems to have worked, but now I have another problem: I have no more memory on my computer! What I grab was only around 80GB, to which I had 424GB remaining before I started. Something seriously happened, and I'll be trying CCleaner after I posted this, but what the hell happened?!

EDIT: Okay, wait a minute. Before it was zero, then after a while it started going back up. As of now, it is 79.5GB. But now it is just there, saying that the rest if used. Again, 80GB was what I took from the old HD, though there is another 80GB in the other folder that I don't need and it won't go away. I think CCleaner will work, or safe mode, or a third option. I need help on this.

EDIT2: The memory is going up because it's taking a while for that other folder to be deleted. Still doesn't explain the loss of the rest of the GB. Is there a way to check what was put inside the computer?

EDIT3: One other tidbit, the recovery worked but I don't have alot of the files, which is fine because I can get them again. But, because they were copied (twice, again because I did this two times), and even though I don't see them, could they still be on my computer somewhere hidden? I'm saying this because my username under Users is only 102GB. With the total space, what it says now, and that folder which seems to be the real amount of used space, wouldn't that theory make sense?

Please explain.
Screen shots are great!

1st: Memory and disk space (I think that's what you mean) are two different things.

2nd: Disk space is changing on which drive? The internal (I think that's what you mean) or the external?

3rd: Did the copies complete or still in progress? Often there is a lag between what is presented and what is actually being used. When you work with 'faulty' drives, the copy might get quite large as the file is collected and reassembled. There might be temp space being used which would double the amount expected.

4th: DO NOT cClean anything!
4th: DO NOT delete, format, wipe anything!
4th: DO NOT attempt any maintenance until you are certain the data recovery operation was successful. This leads to repeating the process and each attempt might lessen the chance of recovery. I think I've given enough warnings on the subject.

Let me try to unravel this.

You have 80 GB of data to recover
You were copying to a disk with 424GB of free space?
During the copy process the free space dropped to zero, but climbed back up to 79.5GB ???
And dropped back to zero ????

Another 80GB in the other folder that won't go away ?????

Nope, can't wrap my head around it.

Please take your time and explain what you observe. Use real names of folders and drives.
For instance: I copied my old documents folder from sdc3 (external drive) to the folder I created (GatewayData) on sda3 (internal drive)

There was 424 GB of free space on sda3 before the copy.
<XYZ> shows the free space on sda3 at zero, but increases and decreases during the copy process.

Tell me what <XYZ> is. How are you checking this free space. What is telling you this information?

I thought the copy was completed, so I restarted the machine - booting Win8.

Something along those lines will help a lot.

Since I don't know the exact steps you took, and I don't know what OS you currently have booted, I'm deaf dumb and blind here.

When all of this is happening are you still in Lucid Puppy Linux or have you restarted and you're working in Win8 again?

Take your time, be as specific as you can - the disc is 'faulty' - if you recall, it took 6hours just to check the volume (before you killed it by shutting down the machine) - it might have taken another 6 hours to complete, I don't know. I know that faulty drives take a long time to read.

If you're still in Lucid Puppy, snapshots can be taken with a Psnaphot (I think that's the name - not the paint snaphot). Right click on the desktop and select the Grahpoics > PSnap (PupSnap?) from the menu

Press the window tab on the snapshot app and press the save button. This puts the image in a folder, but .... the folder is volatile because Puppy is in memory. The paint app should present the picture and then you can save it to a location on your internal hard drive. Ctrl-S and change the save location to /mnt/sda3/PupShots
I used sda3 and PShots as examples - you internal drive might be sda5 - I'm not certain.

There's no need to rush to post the images, just collect them as you think they represent the issue.

You have to help me if I'm going to help you - I can't see what you see unless you paint the picture for me.

Thanks,

Bill
.

What posts on eightforums - please provide me with a link to those posts.

Please post a Win8 disk management screen shot
See: Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

Post# 12 provides additional information on how to provide the most useful screenshot.

In addition to that addendum, please make sure that the Status column shows everything in between the parenthesis (Boot, Page file....)

Thanks

Slartybart said:

s.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html[/url]
Post# 12 provides additional information on how to provide the most useful screenshot.

Step #5 of tutorial now includes recommendations from post #12

Thanks Colin, need to update my template - I'll do that right now so I don't forget.
I edited my post above to strike the note re: #12.

No worries....

I'd like to see a screen shot of disk management as shown in step 5 of the tutorial I linked.

Your image doesn't seem to display the top and bottom sections correctly (two graphical views)

In disk management, click the view menu
select top > volume list
select bottom > Graphical view

That should do it.

If yours looks similar to the one above (top & bottom) then grab the screen shot and post it.

Thanks for the eightforums link - I'd prefer that you follow one path until it is exhausted. Getting advice from more than one person often derails the process.

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Once I see how much space (used and free), I'd like you to re-run the Disk Check to completion - it will take a long time, so overnight might be best.

Connect the old Gateway HD to a USB port
Note the DriveLetter assigned

Open an elevated Command Prompt (follow Option One) Elevated Command Prompt - Open in Windows 8

Type the following command in the Cmd window
(DriveLetter is the old Gateway HD connected to a USB port. Use the actual drive letter assign to it,
not the word Driveletter)

chkdsk /scan DriveLetter:

If the old HD is assigned the drive letter E: (it might be different on your machine, this is an example)

chkdsk /scan E:

Let this iteration run to completion
This is a read only scan of the old HD. It does not fix anything.
Please post the chkdsk log: Check Disk (chkdsk) - Read Event Viewer Log

Let's see how far that gets, but I have a plan.
1st: cleanup the previous attempt to copy files over to your new machine
2nd: perform a single file copy to test the process and data integrity
3rd: perform a single folder copy to test the process and data integrity

Figure out the next step(s) based on the results of the above.