System recovery: Is it possible?

Hi:

I have a Gateway NV53A. I know enough about computers to be dangerous. i've built (and rebuilt) many a pc, and it often involves adventures in Linux, but I rarely go from Windows to Linux and back, and that's where I'm running into trouble.

I made three "recovery" DVDs when I first bought the laptop, then wiped Windows to put Linux on it, thinking I could just use the recovery discs to put it back to factory defaults if I wanted to.

Trouble is, I now only have ONE partition on the whole laptop for Linux. I wiped out ALL other partitions, and now I think I've wrecked it. I like Linux fine, but I'd like to go back to Windows, or possibly a dual boot setup. Is there anything I can do?

 

You can set up partitions using a live linux cd, I prefer gparted (comes with ubuntu)

You need to make 3 partitions, 1 for windows (NTFS), 1 for linux (ext4?) and about 1 gb for linux memory (forgot what it's called)

Since you already wiped out your hard drive you will no longer be able to do a system restore from factory (if your system came with it).

 

Sure, Your recovery dvd's should create a new Win OS install "out of the box" state regardless of whether or not you still have the recovery partition. They will wipe the drive and most likely create 2 partitions possibly 3. 1 a recovery partition and 2 the win os partition and sometimes 3 a data partition. It will kill the linux install and you would have to create another seperate partition and reinstall linux if you still wanted to run it.

Most recovery dvd's are destructive, meaning they will wipe/format the drive.

 

Ok, I tried the recovery. (mine has three dvds, but whatever).

Whenever I try, it goes through the motions, and when I get the list of system volume and size, the label is blank, and there's no number next to "GB."

But whatever, I keep going. Everything seems to be working fine until the "copying system files" progress bar comes up, then the drive winds down, the laptop spits out the DVD, and I get a dialog box with the following message:

When I click "Ok," the laptop reboots.

 

What I would try 1st in this case is to wipe/format the drive with a 3rd party program. Hiren's boot cd (google) has some nice tools on it for that purpose plus alot of other great tools it is a very handy disc to have laying around. Or if you know what brand HD is installed in the machine the HD manufacturer usually have a bootable utility that can wipe /format the drive. The recovery process maybe seeing something with the old Linux install/partition arrangment that it does not like.

 

Ok, I finally screwed up the courage to try some of the tools on that CD you recommended.

the Boot-and-Nuke utility keeps spitting out an error at me too, which suggests there's a disk error somewhere. This confuses me, as I have had NO problems with the hard drive up until now. Linux runs periodic checks of the disk, too, with no reports of any trouble. What am I doing wrong?

 

Maineiac, what brand drive is in the machine. Also what errors were you getting, do you recall?? Do you have a spare HD??

 

I don't recall the exact error off the top of my head. I'll try to run it again today and see if I can get the exact line.

I don't have a spare HD for my laptop, no. Here are the details:

Code:

ATA device, with non-removable media
	Model Number:       Hitachi HTS545032B9A300                 
	Serial Number:      100323PBP30616DHAVUM
	Firmware Revision:  PB3OC60F
	Transport:          Serial, ATA8-AST, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5, SATA Rev 2.6; Revision: ATA8-AST T13 Project D1697 Revision 0b

 

Maineiac lets check the drive, using the hirens boot cd go to the "Hard Disk Tools" and look for "IBM/Hitachi Drive Fitness Test" Run it and see if you come up with any errors.

 

Ok, the version of Hiran's Boot CD that I have doesn't seem to have a hard drive diagnostic tool that will work with my hard drive, but I did go to Hitachi's website and downloaded their hard drive diagnostic tool, burned it on a CD, then ran it. I did a "quick scan" and an "advanced scan." Both scans finished with the following message:

Code:

Disposition Code=0x00

which I can only guess means nothing's wrong. If that's so, why the errors with boot and nuke, or using the recovery disks?

 

Maineiac, did you find any resolution to your issues.