Linux creating VFAT partitions & them not working properly!

Thymox · 12-03-2001, 11:16 AM

I had a spare few gig floating around at the end of my harddisk, so I decided to create a remarkably large vfat partition to put all my mp3's on (were previously only on CD) so that everyone else on the network could play them. All went fine and Windows could see a nice 20Gb Fat32 partition. That is, until I decided that I wanted to try Slackware. I got rid of my 20Gb vfat partition and replaced it with several smaller ext2 partition. Windows was fine with this, it didn't see them! Then I found that I wasn't really doing anything with Slack and missed the ease of having your 8 days-worth of music ready to play. So I got rid of the Slack partitions and replaced them with 2x10Gb partitions (the music only took up about 11Gb, and some of that was crap anyway), both vfat. Fire-up Windows and viola: Windows sees 1x10Gb partition. Under Mandrake's 'diskdrake' utility I can see that there are 2x10Gb partitions, mounted as /mnt/win_e and /mnt/win_f respectively. So why does Windows not see the last 10Gb partition? It's quite a lot of space to just 'lose'.

CragStar · 12-04-2001, 12:13 PM

Just a thought, don't supose you know what type of partition they are, whether primary, extended or logical. Not sure if this makes a difference.

oneuponzero · 12-05-2001, 06:29 AM

i've had similar problems with diskdrake, and i think that it does have to do with extended partitions.

On my comp, i made one primary and one extended partition on the 2.1GB (hdc) hard disk. however, windows recognises just the primary partition, and that ot was unformatted - i had to manually format it to get it working.
any solutions, 'cuz diskdrake does have the potential to match PartitionMagic.

oneuponzero.

Thymox · 12-06-2001, 06:09 AM

Yeah, it/they are extended/logical.
Originally I created 2 primary partitions, and tried to install Windows onto the 1st (this is when I first got my new computer). It didn't like it very much. I found that they best way to get Windows to stop complaining was:

Code:

Primary:  hda1 = windows C, 3Gb
Extended/ hda5 = windows D, 3Gb
logicals:  hda6 = Linux /boot, 50Mb
          hda7 = Linux Swap, 512Mb
          hda8 = Linux /, 1Gb
          hda9 = Linux /home, 1Gb
          hda10 = Linux /root, 1Gb
          hda11 = Linux /usr, 8Gb
          hda12 = Linux /mnt/installcds, 2Gb
          hda13 = windows E, 10Gb
          hda14 = windows F, 10Gb

Which is as-near-as-dammit 40Gb.
Windows can see the C, D & E 'drives', but not F.
Linux can see all partitions.
Oh, hda12 is so that I don't have to use the cds should I need to do a re-install. Quite useful actually.

AnakinSky · 12-07-2001, 03:51 AM

I had the same problem too ..
Partion Magic told me to have Problem with the Harddisk Geometry - Linux uses 2 Heads less for better performance *g*
When i created all Partions with Partion Magic ( i think any WinTool will it do right for M$), i havn't any Problems.
Another Solution is, to give M$ only primary Partitions - thats works also right.
My Config on my Machine running at the moment on the second "way":

hda1 = vfat 2,0 GB 98
hdb1 = ext2 10 MB /boot
hdb2 = NT 3,4 GB 2000
hdb3 = vfat 4,5 GB /mnt/sound2
hde1 = ext2 10 GB /
hde2 = vfat 10 GB /mnt/win1
hde3 = vfat 10 GB /mnt/win2
hde5 = ext2 15 GB /home
hde6 = ext2 15 GB /sound

hde is an HDD on a PCI HDC.
98, 2000 and Linux working all fine with this solution.

mfg AnakinSky

PS: sorry for my horrible gramatic, but i have enough trouble with native language ;-)