Pleeezzz Help SOMEONE

OK Here's my problem:
I am trying to install Linux & win98 dual boot (over a month now)
I had it working fine except X didnt work in Linux so I installed
another version of Linux (Mandrake 7.2) & had everything working perfect until I done something & wrecked Linux (kernel error) & thought the easiest thing would be to re-install (for the 10th time).

On then trying to re-install, diskdrake couldnt see my partition
table, so I was left with no choice but to create a new partition table, losing everything on the hard drive.

I then got win98 & Mandrake back on but windows wouldnt work .
As soon as I chose windows in Lilo I got a disk io error & the machine locked up, cos windows didnt recognise it as FAT32.

I then try FDISK from a win98 start up disk to format the whole lot & start from scratch. ( but no joy ) Windows FDISK thinks I have 2 partition's, a 3gig & 8gig & it dosent know what type they are. I try delete them but I cant cos it says a logical drive exists, which I already deleted..

I then format C in windows FDISK which is 3gig & it is now recognised as FAT32.

So I then went to re-install Linux but hard drake gives me the error that it cant find my partition table, I carry on anyway, ignoring the error, into diskdrake to modify the partition table & it can see the 3gig FAT32 partition & thinks the other 8gig is empty.

No matter what I do to add partitions of any sort I get the error:
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"partition table does not have 4 entries at /usr/bin/perl-install/partition_table_dos.pm line891 not formatted"
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By the way I tried formatting it but I just get that error.

Can someone please help
any help would be appreciated

amp2000

It just sounds like each OS is not seeing the others formatting. I would suggest in diskdrake, clearing all partitions making one. Don't format it. Just leave it blank and boot off your win98 disk and fdisk and do an fdisk /mbr to make sure the master boot record is what it needs to be for now. Make the space you want for windows and install that. Leave the extra space free and unformatted to install mandrake on, when you go into mandrake you should see the fat space followed by the free space in which you can format ext2. That's what i would try first. It's an all out redo, but sometimes that all that worked for me. Have a good one.

not sure if you tried this but its worth a shot (maybe even try it again)...

boot to a dos fdisk
delete all dos/win partitions
boot linux (you can boot from an install cd)
run fdisk
delete all linux partitions

now your entire drive should be unused disk space.

install windows, creating a fat partition while you do it
install linux, creating a linux native and linux swap while you do it.

make sure you delete all fat partitions with dos fdisk and all linux partitions with linux fdisk

if it still fails after this, get pqmagic and try to delete all your partitions that way.

taz.devil wrote
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I would suggest in diskdrake, clearing all partitions making one. Don't format it. Just leave it blank and boot off your win98 disk and fdisk and do an fdisk /mbr to make sure the master boot record is what it needs to be for now.
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Nice one, seem's to be doing the trick (halfway through it)

amp2000

cheer's that's done the trick

Glad to hear it!