R-linux (rli_en_3) issues on Win98se

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R-linux (rli_en_3) issues on Win98se

Post by Fence Sitter » Mon Dec 01, 2008 1:31 pm

I have a version of R-linux I downloaded 22nd November 2008 from the site. Problematic duadrive with missing linux partition information, installed as a slave. Under win98 se, it does not present an option to scan the entire drive as per manufactures specs, or even what the bios reports the size to be, as the program will not see the drive any bigger than what Win98se "knows" it to be. There is a option to scan the entire drive, but doing so, is no larger than what win98 reports. This is a problem.




Background:

I have a "pet" dual boot drive (40G) which had some linux partitions with some important data on it, so have been very hesitant to actually commit any changes to the drive. The drive was deliberately "hacked" by someone who I used to consider a valued friend. (Long before I was able to retrieve the machine after they had moved house, I had become aware though others, they and their hubby had some seriously sad "head issues", much of which could be simplistically summed up. )

So far:

I don't get much time to sit down and work exclusively on the drive. I get a chance every once and a while and it's surprising how fast the years have moved past. Scanning for logical drives takes a while. Scanning with various tools from UBCD, live linux distros, I can see the deleted linux partitions and contents, but not in entirety. Between the few tools, most of the information is there I believe, though I'm mostly interested in the dd images now.

Apart from bootable solutions, I've downloaded a few win98se compatible programs over the last few years that might be able to do a thorough job, but got no further than installing them. Many I hadn't bothered installing as they are merely demo only, and no real way to know if the "retrieved" file really has 401K of useful information, or simply 401K of null data. (Yes, a bitter lesson was learned years ago, when I got and used some win98 software and actually "thought" I'd backed up a nearly dead drive to cd, only to find later, many files contained nothing more than null data.)

Alt
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Re: R-linux (rli_en_3) issues on Win98se

Post by Alt » Mon Dec 01, 2008 2:18 pm

Well, If your OS cannot see an HDD full-sized, there is not much you can do apart from using a computer with Windows 2000/XP installed. I believe all other Win98-compatible software will not see the entire HDD either.

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Re: R-linux (rli_en_3) issues on Win98se

Post by Fence Sitter » Tue Dec 02, 2008 8:39 am

Alt wrote:Well, If your OS cannot see an HDD full-sized, there is not much you can do apart from using a computer with Windows 2000/XP installed. I believe all other Win98-compatible software will not see the entire HDD either.


That's a very odd answer in regards to software compatible with Win98, that recovers /views non fat file systems.

For instance an older version of r-linux, can actually see all of the drive. That's one of the first things a recovery program, should be designed to work out. Of course, all do, that are anything more than mere chumpware.

What I'm saying is, the version that was about 22nd November 2008, appears to be seriously flawed.

It reports a total size of 7.8G, which may be a clue for the development team.

I guess I'll grab the new version and see if it behaves any differently.

Another feature I noted was absent, though r-linux did find a superblock in the last win partition (yes it is very probable linux started somewhere in the last incorrectly described fat32 partition) there doesn't seem to be any designed features to verify if the superblock is intact and how it relates to the rest of the drive.

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Re: R-linux (rli_en_3) issues on Win98se

Post by Fence Sitter » Wed Dec 03, 2008 8:54 am

Well I tried the version from the 25th Noverber 2008, and it too has the critical shortcoming.

The version I downloaded from the 22nd Nov, has Md5 of
EBCB6CF5AC2DE2215C6EFED7F9C7A18E

The version I downloaded yesterday has a MD5 of
7BCAC6104F4CD81E3474E923A2821459

I see there is a new version available today (Build 127527), and will test it later. MD5 of D105DAEC69ED1C73A260E4691E756205

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Re: R-linux (rli_en_3) issues on Win98se

Post by Fence Sitter » Thu Dec 04, 2008 8:04 am

Well, no joy with build 127527, (3rd December 2008). Under win98se, it now has a super critical bug. RS_AN.Bin is corrupt, which it informs me upon startup.

Yes I reinstalled it, as was impressed to see the installer actually checks and offers a repair to the installation. That didn't work sadly, nor did removing it and reinstalling it again. I downloaded the file again just in case, with an entirely different browser, and checked the MD5 between what I downloaded yesterday and today. They matched, so the ball is firmly in the corner of there being a slight hiccup with the code.

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Re: R-linux (rli_en_3) issues on Win98se

Post by Alt » Sat Dec 06, 2008 12:37 pm

Well, this is a really crytical bug. We have fixed it and the fix will be available soon. Keep updated.

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Re: R-linux (rli_en_3) issues on Win98se

Post by Alt » Sun Dec 07, 2008 8:08 am

Check this new build of R-Linux. It should work fine. If not, please inform us.

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Re: R-linux (rli_en_3) issues on Win98se

Post by Fence Sitter » Sun Dec 07, 2008 12:21 pm

Well yes it installs, but it's still has the same CRITICAL problem (for win 98) as far as seeing partitions that aren't Fat32, in that it sets the Total size of the drive as what Windows reports.

The version from 2004 can actually see a whole drive , so there's obviously a little hiccup with this latest code that's gone awry.

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Re: R-linux (rli_en_3) issues on Win98se

Post by Fence Sitter » Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:55 am

The latest version released 11th December 2008, still has the same critical bug for Windows 98. I suppose I could repartition the whole drive as fat32, but that sort of defeats the purpose of a program that's supposed to be able to image a failing drive and recover linux data or hopefully the entire linux partition.

I just don't get why the old version can see the whole entire drive and yet the newer code can not.

It's nice that it's offered freely, but the broken (well for 98 anyway) software doesn't do the recent development team any favours.

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Re: R-linux (rli_en_3) issues on Win98se

Post by Alt » Tue Dec 16, 2008 11:02 am

I have passed the information to our developers.

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