NTFS drive wont mount - "unknown filesystem"?

[David McNally]

OK, I'm having a bit of a problem. When I plug the drive into the XP
computer, it does not appear in My Computer. Windows doesn't show any
sign of noticing it. There isn't even the little "installing device
drivers" balloon by the taskbar.

I tried using the command line and using chkdsk, but I didn't know
what drive letter to use. I decided to try "chkdsk A: /f", and then
"chkdsk B: /f" and so on with every letter in the alphabet (except for
C). However, each letter returned with the same error message, telling
me that the drive could not be found or accessed. There were only two
disks in the computer (the 40 GB internal hard drive, and my broken
700 GB external hard drive).

Also, this windows computer needs to be used by other people during
the day, and I'm afraid that this drive might take longer than one
overnight to finish. However, I have a VirtualBox VM of windows vista
(which I haven't used in months), and I know that USB devices can be
plugged into VMs, so could I do it that way?

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 1:19 PM, Dave Woyciesjes
<woyciesjes at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> David McNally wrote:
>> On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 7:10 PM, sdavmor <sdavmor at systemstheory.net> wrote:
>>> David McNally wrote:
>
>>>> >From what sdavmor and Preston said, it seems as though I should plug
>>>> it into a Windows machine and run chkdsk on it. I do have an old XP
>>>> machine that still works properly, so I suppose I'll try it on that. I
>>>> suppose I need to go into Start - Accessories and find chkdsk in there
>>>> somewhere. Probably not too hard.
>>>>
>>>> If I do that, about how long should the chkdsk take? It's a 700 GB
>>>> hard drive, with about 600 GB used. Will it need to run overnight?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks.
>
>>> Open a Windows DOS box (the cmd program). Then you can run:
>>>
>>> chkdsk driveletter /flags
>>>
>>> i.e. chkdsk z: /f
>>>
>>> I think you'll want /? to see what flags are available to you.
>
>  >
>  > If I log in as administrator, will I get all of the rights that I want?
>  >
>
>        Yep, you'll be good to go. Preston also described how to do it via the GUI:
> "...going to My Computer, right-clicking the drive, go to Properties,
> then the Tools tab, then Check Now in the error checking section (that
> is for Win XP, it may be some where a little different for Vista or 7).
>  Make sure to check the "Automatically fix file system errors"  Once
> you are done, make sure to either shut Windows down completely, or
> right-click the drive in My Computer and click Eject to before removing
> it..."
>
>        I'm not sure if there is a difference between doing it via the GUI or
> doing chkdsk <driveletter> /f at the command line. You could always
> hedge your bets and do both...;-)
>
> --
> --- Dave Woyciesjes
> --- ICQ# 905818
> --- AIM - woyciesjes
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-- 
David McNally
david3333333 at gmail.com
Linux Kernel 2.6.31-17-generic