Merging two partitions, takes alot of time (stuck?)

Hi

I got a 750GB hdd split in four partitions:
1. 150GB (OS)
2. 20GB (Linux)
3. 130GB (Empty)
4. 450GB (Backup)

And I wanted to merge 3. and 4. Paragon Hard Disk Manager told me I had to reboot because some files blocked the action, so I rebooted. Then I got into the program itself in a DOS-like interface where it begins to do it's thing.

It's the 450GB who's getting extended, not the other way around.

But thing is, the harddrive doesn't make these tickingsounds harddrives usually make when they're working, and it has stood on for almost 3 hours now. "Moving files and directories".

"Work time 02:42:54" - updating itself every now and then
"Time to finish 01:44:08" - also updating itself every now and then

Both numbers are just rising.

The "Suboperation progress"-bar is empty
The "Merge two partitions into one"-bar is full (green).

Done/All/Read/Write is all at 0.

Overall progress is full (green).

-----
Timers work
Harddrive are silent
Bars are still
-----

Is it stuck here? I don't want to interrupt it so I might get corrupt data. Also, if I have to or the power goes etc. can this operation affect the other partitions (not involved in the merging)? I certainly don't want to lose the OS-partition..

Thanks for any answers and sorry for wall-of-text, ask if you guys need more info!

 

Ok ironicly now it suddenly did a whole lot of operations after standing still and by the looks doing nothing, which probably then is wrong Kind of hard to know how long it should take and if it's really working or not

But now I got:

Information
If you have Linux installed, please reinit its boot loader!
(reunit?)

But there is no mouse-pointer and I enter/space doesn't work, neither does tabbing.. Hmm.
Scared of pressing escape here, I REALLY can't afford to lose my data on this disk because of some stupidity like esc'ing inturrupts the whole progress or alike

Edit again: Pressed escape, nothing happened. Is it finished? The popup won't go away.

Edit again: Ok great.. I got all stressed out that it was all stuck, so I restarted the computer, and now I got:

GRUB Loading stage 1.5

GRUB loading, please wait...
Error 17

I read that GRUB is a multiboot boot loader, but what is it that has really happened here? Looks like the name of the partitions are screwed up. Need help, and help bad. Note: I don't want to involve my linux-partition in all of this, so I don't really see why this GRUB-thing is relevant at all. Does it read NTFS at all? Or just ext2/3/4?

 

kjeksomanen,

At this point it sounds like the operation was interrupted. First, we should determine the current state of the drive, to do this please reboot the PC and boot from our recovery CD, either the linux or winPE recovery CD's will work.

Once booted from the CD, launch the full Partition Manager interface and take a look at the partitions to see if they are correct.

You can also use the file transfer wizard to look inside the partitions and see if the data was merged properly.

If everything appears correct then most likely the operation was completed successfully, however since you're getting that boot loader error message, it is likely that the MBR was corrupted, so from within Partition Manager right click the hard disk and select "update MBR".

If the partition tables do not appear correct and/or the data in the partition as viewed from the file transfer wizard is not correct, then the operation most likely failed. At which point I would suggest a 3rd party un-delete utility to get the files you need.

 

Since GRUB is booting, I would think the MBR is okay (at least where GRUB is concerned).

Have you checked that the partition table partition order is the same as it was before? Merging the partitions may have caused them to be detected in a different order. You may just need to reinstall GRUB. I would recommend verifying the partitions and contents are correct (as Paragon_Matt posted) before reinstalling GRUB.

 

First off; thank you very much both of you for good answers, and quick!

I just have to say, I don't really have any idea how GRUB really works, but I'll take a look into the recovery CD. But a question; would this also work with a USB memory stick?

Also, MudCrab, I have not checked the table partition order, because I don't know how I do this. Before I tryed to merge these partitions I had the options to either boot in Ubuntu or WinXP, standard Windows boot order options (nothing like GRUB as far as I know). The hard drive order is the same as before, but that shouldn't had been changed anyway I guess.

I have to do this later on today, but could this operation have caused the first partition (150GB, WinXP OS) to also gotten into the "mess"? Because I wasn't trying to merge anything with this partition, it's just on the same hard drive.

Thanks again

 

Are you currently booting from a flashdrive? If so, does GRUB load normally if you disconnect it and boot normally? Having a different drive connected may cause the detection order to change (even if you didn't change it).

What version of Linux is installed?

You can view the Partition Table in HDM by right-clicking on the drive and then selecting <em>Change Primary Slots...</em> from the pop-up menu. You can also see it by selecting the drive and selecting that option from the <em>Hard Disk</em> menu. Don't make any changes in the order. Just look if it's different than it was. Here's an example:


I don't think the XP partition would have been changed. In my experience with GRUB, it seems very sensitive to change -- it breaks easily. You could probably boot right into XP by setting that partition Active and updating the MBR (GRUB would still need to be reinstalled to fix it and allow booting into Linux).

If you're concerned about the contents of the partitions, it would be good to create a backup of them (or the entire drive). In general, it's recommended to create an Entire Disk Image backup before making partitioning changes.

 

Thanks again

No, I'm not booting from a flashdrive, only got two OS', and that is WinXP sp3 and Ubuntu 9.04 (I belive) on the 750GB harddrive.

I might have been confusing be asking about using a usb memory(flash) stick for the recovery CD (transfering data onto this), but no use in dwelling at that, CD is no problem.

And thanks for the info on GRUB and MBR.

Now the computer won't turn on, the fans are going etc. but never even gets to POST. I'm going to try to replug the cables and maybe some other common things like that, but can't really see how that should fix anything..

So naturally I can't even get into the recovery CD like how it's now.
I got an old harddrive somewhere, maybe I have to plug this into the system, but I'm not sure what this would mean. Is the harddrive broken or something? Any ideas?

 

Does the board have any diagnostic LEDs on it? Most of the newer ones I have do. These can often be a great help in determining the problem.

Usually, you just have to start disconnecting things until you find the problem. It can be the power supply or a failed device. Sometimes just doing a complete power off, waiting a minute, and then powering back on can help. I recently had a power supply fail in that it wouldn't turn off. Windows would shut down, but the computer remained on with the fans running.

 

No, the motherboard unfortunaly doesn't have any diagnostic LEDs, just the power indicator, and it's not making any BEEPs.

Ok now I tried to reset CMOS with jumpers, and it failed. I also unplugged both the power and the s-ata cabel on the harddrive I have been operating with, and still the same problem. Just simply can't get into even POST.

So then I guess it must be something else, maybe I'm looking on more than just one error, hehe, this is beginning to be a real pain

I'm going to try the elimination tactic, disconnecting things until I find the problem. But it could be a lot of different things like CPU, RAM, PSU, motherboard, almost anything, even though it just of now doesn't make sense to me. Can't see why it happened now, maybe just random.

Just to be clear: when I shut down the computer last night, "just" having problems with the GRUB Loading State problem, it wasn't like this. I tryed to reboot a couple of times, and I just got the same error described a little back in the thread, but when I turned the computer on today it just would even get to the GRUB Loading State.

 

Ok now I got the system up and running again, seems like the good ol' error with either the RAM-sockets, or one of the sticks itself (I got 2x 1GB). So I got the system into POST and BIOS with only using one. Only thing is that I can't really see why this happened just now.

I'll be editing this post as to what comes ahead. Going to try the recovery CD.

Edit:
Ok I got the recovery CD up and running, and all the partitions looked really nice, even the merging seems to be a success. So I updated the MBR, and rebooted, and I'm now in WinXP again
By the looks I guess it was a corrupt MBR, and maybe also a problem with the ram, as an outstanding problem (not connected to this problem).

Thanks for all the support, wouldn't have figured this out without you!

 

Keep us posted how you get on. Good luck.

 

Edited my post, hopes this will help anyone getting in a simular situation