Inserting a HDD from Windows 8.1 to Ubuntu 16.04 not accessing the Windows partition data

Question

I was using Windows 8.1 for Android Development from 2 HDDs, one for OS and other for SDK and code. But last week I migrated to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

I formatted the main HDD (having Windows) and installed Ubuntu in it. Now, after attaching the other drive, it is displayed in Dashboard, but not showing any data or partition in either terminal or in Files.

Since, I have no backup, I don't want to lose data. Is there any solution to get it back without inserting it to Windows and backing up data and re-insert to Ubuntu?

What I tried

But every effort was in vein.

Any help would be appriciated.

EDIT

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' 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).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=7b1cdbf2-641e-4ac1-9ec2-7e58992047d4 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /home was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=df60b278-bf9b-4ae7-8140-93e2abb2b3dc /home           ext4    defaults        0       2
# swap was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=c17ef1f0-39b7-44fe-8e05-63673868deb9 none            swap    sw              0       0

$ lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sdb      8:16   0 149.1G  0 disk 
├─sdb2   8:18   0 148.9G  0 part /media/acme1/ACME
└─sdb1   8:17   0   200M  0 part 
sda      8:0    0 232.9G  0 disk 
├─sda2   8:2    0  57.2G  0 part /
├─sda5   8:5    0 171.9G  0 part /home
├─sda3   8:3    0     1K  0 part 
└─sda1   8:1    0   3.8G  0 part [SWAP]

$ df
Filesystem     1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
udev             2512520       0   2512520   0% /dev
tmpfs             506744    7668    499076   2% /run
/dev/sda2       58927276 5919860  49991020  11% /
tmpfs            2533720   75668   2458052   3% /dev/shm
tmpfs               5120       4      5116   1% /run/lock
tmpfs            2533720       0   2533720   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda5      177238584 7771484 160440848   5% /home
tmpfs             506744      84    506660   1% /run/user/1000
/dev/sdb2       61710332   89688  61620644   1% /media/acme1/ACME

$ ls /media/acme1/ACME
System Volume Information

Ya, sure. I plugged the HDD directly to the motherboard with SATA cable. — Mohammedsalim Shivani, Apr 04 '17 at 09:54
No it has 2 partions. 1 is of around 55GB and other of 70GB and the later one has only 5GB around empty. — Mohammedsalim Shivani, Apr 04 '17 at 10:14
Also, in properties it shows 63GB or so Free Space, which it was before inserting it in Ubuntu. While other 85GB's details are not displayed, since HDD's capacity is 160GB. — Mohammedsalim Shivani, Apr 04 '17 at 10:16
Please check your HDD on a windows machine and make sure it is working properly there. It appears to me that there is something wrong with it. — Mostafa Ahangarha, Apr 04 '17 at 10:26
Yes in Windows machine, the data is as it is and works properly. — Mohammedsalim Shivani, Apr 05 '17 at 06:05
please run this also: mount | grep sdb to see how the HDD is mounted — Mostafa Ahangarha, Apr 05 '17 at 06:18
it give the following message: /dev/sdb2 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered) /dev/sdb5 on /home type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered) — Mohammedsalim Shivani, Apr 05 '17 at 10:56
The problem is found. your device is mounted wrongly as ext4 filesystem. I come with an answer. and please move the last comment into your question (as I asked before) and remove all the unnecessary comments. It would be great if you provide the result of cat /etc/fstab — Mostafa Ahangarha, Apr 05 '17 at 16:58
If Windows 8 or later you have fast start up or hibernation. And that keeps everything mounted. You need to turn off the fast startup in Windows to make sure all NTFS partitions are unmounted. http://askubuntu.com/questions/843153/ubuntu-16-showing-windows-10-partitions More explanation of NTFS driver & Windows hibernation http://askubuntu.com/questions/145902/unable-to-mount-windows-ntfs-filesystem-due-to-hibernation — oldfred, Apr 05 '17 at 17:36
Possible duplicate of Unable to mount Windows (NTFS) filesystem due to hibernation — Mostafa Ahangarha, Apr 06 '17 at 07:58
I tried all that solutions but none of them worked. Also, restarted the system but, it also didn't worked. Hence, it is not duplicate the given link. — Mohammedsalim Shivani, Apr 06 '17 at 11:42

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 04 '17 at 07:58

0

It is likely the system did not install the tools needed to use NTFS formatted disks since you had no Windows disk connected to it. It would have installed those tools if you had the disk connected to the system when you installed Ubuntu.

You can install NTFS support with

sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g

After that reconnect the drive and see if it shows content.

answered Apr 04 '17 at 07:58

Rinzwind

299,756

will it leave the data as it is? – Mohammedsalim Shivani Apr 04 '17 at 08:01
That command? Yes. It installs software on your Ubuntu that tells Ubuntu how to handle windows filesystems. – Rinzwind Apr 04 '17 at 08:02
okay, let me try – Mohammedsalim Shivani Apr 04 '17 at 08:03
it shows the following result. Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done ntfs-3g is already the newest version (1:2015.3.14AR.1-1ubuntu0.1). 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 113 not upgraded. – Mohammedsalim Shivani Apr 04 '17 at 08:05
i restarted after that command, but in vain. it doesnt show any data. just detects the HDD only. – Mohammedsalim Shivani Apr 04 '17 at 09:11
when you try to mount the partition in nautilus, does it gets successfully mounted or it shows error? – Sumeet Deshmukh Apr 04 '17 at 10:16
sudo ntfsfix -b -d /dev/sda1 regardless of that try this command (note sda1 should be replaced by the partition number which isn't working. this might help but it'll surely do no harm – Sumeet Deshmukh Apr 04 '17 at 10:19
@Rinzwind are you still available? – Mohammedsalim Shivani Apr 04 '17 at 10:24
@SumeetDeshmukh i have not installed nautilus. – Mohammedsalim Shivani Apr 04 '17 at 10:29
@SumeetDeshmukh sudo ntfs -b -d /dev/sda1 gives an error Mounting volume... NTFS signature is missing. FAILED Attempting to correct errors... NTFS signature is missing. FAILED Failed to startup volume: Invalid argument NTFS signature is missing. Trying the alternate boot sector Unrecoverable error Volume is corrupt. You should run chkdsk. – Mohammedsalim Shivani Apr 04 '17 at 10:32
i replaced sda with HDD's volume number – Mohammedsalim Shivani Apr 04 '17 at 10:33
You need windows to repair the disk. It was in an unsafe state when you last disconnected it. Maybe with the Linux tool ntfsfix it should be part of those NTFS tools – Rinzwind Apr 04 '17 at 10:51

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 05 '17 at 17:09

0

Based on the result of running the mount command, your HDD is mounted as ext4 which is wrong.

Unmount your device
Make a mount point (in not already existed) by making a folder in /media/:
```
sudo mkdir /media/acme1/ACME
```

Mount it manually by running:

sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb2 /media/acme1/ACME

Now, you should see all your files.

I assume there is a line in your /etc/fstab which is making this drive be automatically mounted as ext4. If you share the content of this file, the problem can be solved permanently.

answered Apr 05 '17 at 17:09

Mostafa Ahangarha

4,408

Any success? Please update – Mostafa Ahangarha Apr 06 '17 at 05:29
I just came to ofc and inserted HDD back to Ubuntu. I am checking it. – Mohammedsalim Shivani Apr 06 '17 at 06:12
i updated my question, with the output of the above command. – Mohammedsalim Shivani Apr 06 '17 at 07:19
DO NOT REMOVE RESULT OF OTHER COMMANDS YOU RAN. THEY ARE NEEDED. /etc/fstab is fine. Did you do what I said in the answer? result? – Mostafa Ahangarha Apr 06 '17 at 07:29
Ya i tried that too. It shows the following error: NTFS signature is missing. Failed to mount '/dev/sdb': Invalid argument The device '/dev/sdb' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS. Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around? – Mohammedsalim Shivani Apr 06 '17 at 07:31
I wish you would ckeck the filesytem of your HDD. if it is not NTFS, then it should be fat. replace ntfs with vfat and try again – Mostafa Ahangarha Apr 06 '17 at 07:44
when i checked in Windows system, it was NTFS – Mohammedsalim Shivani Apr 06 '17 at 07:46
Then use ntfs-3g – Mostafa Ahangarha Apr 06 '17 at 07:48
It shows following message: $ sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb2 /media/acme1/ACME [sudo] password for acme1: The disk contains an unclean file system (0, 0). Metadata kept in Windows cache, refused to mount. Failed to mount '/dev/sdb2': Operation not permitted The NTFS partition is in an unsafe state. Please resume and shutdown Windows fully (no hibernation or fast restarting), or mount the volume read-only with the 'ro' mount option. – Mohammedsalim Shivani Apr 06 '17 at 07:51
Oh! Now it is clear why you cannot mount it. to read this Harddisk, you either should mount it in Readonly mode or you should deactivate hibernation in Windows. Your solution is here: http://askubuntu.com/a/145904/214264 – Mostafa Ahangarha Apr 06 '17 at 07:57
Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Mohammedsalim Shivani Apr 06 '17 at 12:06

Mohammedsalim Shivani · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-12T08:19:25.443

Thank you everyone for your response and time.

Finally, I solved the issue by formatting the HDD with FAT32 partition type and windows for the use.

I thought to format that HDD with partition type FAT32 after getting the data in other disk. I was experimenting it since after the efforts of more than a week, I was not succeeded.

This thought came after I read somewhere regarding this in some link given in the above links.

This led me to succeed and maybe it can help someone else too facing the same situation.

I am now able to use that particular partition in Ubuntu as well as Windows.

Once again, Thank You very much for the guidance and help.

Inserting a HDD from Windows 8.1 to Ubuntu 16.04 not accessing the Windows partition data

3 Answers3