[Solved] KDE 4.4: Dolphin no longer sees Windows partition

Question

This is a bit tricky, but I figure someone may have just have come across this bit of oddity... or hopefully, might have an idea of how to fix it.
A week ago, I did a clean install of Arch and KDE.  When I would start Dolphin it would start up and show my Windows partition (labeled like '34 MB Disk' or something like that) in the sidebar.  It was real handy: I could click on it and it would mount my Windows partition - easy to get to files on it.  A week after this, I decided I needed a swap partition so I used gparted to resize my / partition from something close to:
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32.3kB 23.1GB 23.1GB primary ntfs boot
3 24.3GB 60.0GB 36.7GB primary ext4
to:
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32.3kB 23.1GB 23.1GB primary ntfs boot
2 23.1GB 24.3GB 1258MB primary linux-swap(v1)
3 24.3GB 60.0GB 35.7GB primary ext4
I also labeled the Windows partition to 'Windows'.
When I rebooted, I remember opening up Dolphin and there was a partition named 'Windows' on the Panel sidebar.  However, when I went to set up the swap, I noticed that 'fdisk -l' showed the partitions in the wrong order.  At the end of the output was the message, "Partition table entries are not in disk order".  A bit unsure about this, I learned that I can fix this with fdisk (fdisk in the extended menu has a 'fix partition order' option).  After doing this and rebooting, I can no longer seen my Windows partition in Dolphin.
I've tried a couple things, like restarting again, and erasing the dolphin configs (~/.kde4/share/apps/dolphin) with no luck.  I'm not sure if this is a HAL problem, or if the partition table entry is a bit corrupt, or what.  Was hoping someone had an idea.
Last edited by Gen2ly (2010-03-01 07:53:36)

Answer 1

Um, no.  Good question toad.  This is what I'm getting:
# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/win
Unexpected clusters per mft record (-1).
Failed to startup volume: Invalid argument
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sda1' doesn't have a valid NTFS.
Ok, I've tried a couple things now and got it fixed to a degree.  When I installed a swap partition in the middle of the partitions, this altered GRUB's knowledge of the partition tables, and I had to reinstall it.  During this I accidentally installed GRUB 'setup (hd0,0)' to the Windows partition.  But I don't think this caused the problem.  I say this because when I did [wiki]MBR#Restoring_a_Windows_Boot_Record[/wiki] the Windows partition still didn't show in Dolphin.  Instead, I had to repair the Boot Sector as described by a friendly guy in the Ubuntu forums.  Because this was a Boot Sector issue, it looks like the fdisk command did this.   Anyways, I'll describe it quickly here in case anyone else comes across it.  What you need to do is boot from a LiveCD and either install TestDisk or use a Rescue CD like Parted Magic that does, then start 'testdisk' and do these steps:
No log
Choose Disk > Proceed
Intel
Advanced
Select partition > Boot
Rebuild BS > Write
And voila, next reboot, I'm able to see and mount my Windows partition again.  Phew.  So it looked like the problem is fixed, but not quite.  When I rebooted and tried to load Windows GRUB hung, it showed one line, something like 'GRUB loading stage2' and it wouldn't go any further.  Has anyone run across this before?  I use Windows from time to time so, hoping to find a way to get this fixed.
Edit:
Found out more, take a look at this post:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=92233
Last edited by Gen2ly (2010-03-01 07:54:23)