Hi, not sure if it belongs on this forum or not but heres my problem...I

have had Red Hat 7 working fine on my old laptop. Now I have bought a new one I`m giving my old one to my girlfriend and she wants Windows installed on it.

No problems there.

Now I come in install windows and I had trouble deleting the the linux partitions but I have finally done that now using Linux Fdisk. Now I can`t create any new ones for windows on the drive. I don`t get any errors from the windows Fdisk, it creates the partitions but it wont save the new partitions. It says complete and to reboot but when I do Fdisk says there are "No partitions defined".

And when I try to remove Lilo from the MBR using Fdisk /mbr I get the following error... "error writing to fixed disk. The master boot code has not been updated"...


I can however install Linux on the drive again and everything works fine.


If anyone has any ideas as to why this problem is I would be very greatfull.

The laptop is a Samsung SENS Pro 500.

Thanks in advance

Try creating the drives w/ Linux fdisk.

Yes, usually what I do is throw a linux install CD in, boot from it, and use that to delete all the partitions on the drive. Then when you go to install Windows, it'll be happy to see it has the place to itself.

I have had this problem with desktop machines. The "knoppix" solution is more elegant, but I ended up booting into DOS and using some old Norton software to delete stuff at a low level. Then, MS FDisk would work. So, that gives you (or whoever runs into this problem) another way of doing things.

thanks to those that replied. I have managed to get all the linux partitions off the drive and Lilo out of the MBR, and now created a new partition.

The problem I have got now is I can`t put anything else in the MBR. Fdisk /mbr did nothing but give me errors and when I used other software to replace the MBR and even replace it with a backup of the original nothing happens.

I also cannot install windows because it needs to write to the MBR during installation which it can not do.

So.... the long and short of it is... I think the MBR is shot and I can`t think of anything else to do to it.

Booting up with a DOS disk or CD and I get access to C: everytime. Just can`t get the bugger to boot by itself.

Cheers

Get yourself a copy of acronis partition expert.

Could you not boot with the windows disc and dothe recovery console and fixmbr? Or would that not work because you dont have windows installed? Maybe use the windows XP boot discs which will get you to a dos prompt where you can do fixboot and fixmbr.

I dont know that I had to, but once when I first started with linux I had a similar problem.
I wound up downloading a low level formating tool from the maker of my hard drive and that fixed me up. Only thing is it took hours to do the low level format.
Please let us know what you wind up doing and how it went, for future reference.

Anytime I have a problem like that with a drive I erase the whole drive to zero's including the MBR, using Ranish. I believe this is M$ only but it may work in Wine. Probably any other utility that can erase the whole drive to zero's will work. Also I always reformate the drive with Ranish as M$ Fdisk seems to waste space.

Paul

Hi, thanks for all the answers.

The price of the software that Aussie mentioned is more than a replacment hard drive, as this is a old machine I am not really looking to spend money on fixing it, although I`m sure that the software is available for a download somewhere on the net.

I cannot use the recovery console from XP to do a fixmbr as, due to the age of the machine, Windows XP will not run on it, hence I was using Linux. But I have used Fdisk /mbr and got nowhere.

I have already tried Ranish, and although it lets me make partitions on the drive when I have tried to do anything to the MBR it dosn`t make any difference, but it never gives me any errors when it`s changed the MBR like Fdisk does.

I have erased the whole drive to zeros but still nothing happens. I have made some progress though.....

After I zeroed the drive I repartitioned it and booted from a Windows 98 CD. I then formatted the hard drive with the /s command I can now turn on the hard drive boot to the C: prompt. But whenever I try to install windows it still comes up unable to install because it can`t write to the disk.

Incidently, I can still install any of my 3 linux distros on there with out any problems.

Which makes me think that the drive is not completely dead. I`m very confused with it all.


The only thing I could think of now is maybe there is something in the BIOS or in some sort of hard drive firmware that will only let me install Windows from the original disks that would have come with the laptop. Seems quite unlikely though.

Graham

Umm. Could you take out the drive, set it as slave, then go to a friends place who has xp, and use the right click thing in xp to format it as fat32 or ntfs? By the right click thing I mean in My Computer, right clicking the D: drive and clicking the format thingie...

I could, but I don`t know anyone with a laptop that has duel IDE support and I don`t have a converter here do to it on my main system.

A stupid question but anyway, are you using an original win98 installation disk or a backup copy if there is such a thing.
In other words when is the last time the install disk you are using was KnoWn to to a good install.

you could always try a lowlevel format