In my 40 GB harddisk ,I had installed Red Hat 7.3,Mandrake 8.0 and Windows Xp.I converted the disk to dynamic disk.But before that i installed lilo.I thought that Mandrake 's Kernel supports dynamic disk.And also lilo can boot into any partition(now volumes) in the dynamic disk.Unfortunately I was wrong.Since I had not compiled my linux kernel to support dynamic disk, I could not boot into the os.Is there any way to boot into the os -if not is there anything i can do so that without using any backups i can install a new linux os -without the loss of data.

From MS site:
<QUOTE>
Only computers running Windows 2000 can access dynamic volumes.
</QUOTE>
and
<QUOTE>
Since dynamic disks do not use the traditional disk organization scheme of partitions and logical volumes, they cannot be directly accessed by MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98, or any versions of Windows NT.
</QUOTE>
(from http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tre...t1/sopch01.asp)
I'm not sure if you can even access your Linux partitions any way now. Please try your Linux installation cds (in "rescue" mode) and look if you can get to your data.

Edit: BTW Can anyone write (in plain English) what a dynamic disk really is?

1.Dynamic disks provide features that basic disks do not, such as the ability to create volumes that span multiple disks (spanned and striped volumes), and the ability to create fault tolerant volumes (mirrored and RAID-5 volumes). All volumes on dynamic disks are known as dynamic volumes.

There are five types of dynamic volumes: simple, spanned, striped, mirrored, and RAID-5. Mirrored and RAID-5 volumes are fault tolerant and are available only on computers running Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, or Windows XP. However, one can use a computer running Windows XP Professional to create mirrored and RAID-5 volumes on these operating systems.
2.Dynamic disk are thus much better than traditional partitioned disks.In dynamic disks there are no primary,extended or logical partition but they are replaced by volumes .The whole harddisk acts as a single partitions containing volumes.Volumes of dynamic disk can be understood by few os.There is an ongoing work to support LDM as it is known in linux.Try the sourceforge page for further documentation.Mandrake linux kernel supposedly supports LDM but the installer doesnot .To enable LDM support in linux you have to enable it by recompiling the linux kernel to enable ldm support.
Lilo can see through the dynamic volumes( whereas grub is lost searching for a partition -as it thinks the harddisk contains a single partition).
So the biggest headache i had was that i thought that i could boot into mandrake but i could not.
I can rescue the data in the dynamic disk through following three ways(provided that they are ext2/3)
1.Through the rescue mode in installer(doesnot work in mandrake)
2.nifty utility called ext2explorer
3.the windows ext2 driver(also available in sourceforge- documentation is also available)
I did not know that these pages are read by those who had so little technical knowledge in linux.
I am suprised.
Well i tried to ask help to a LDM programmer but he was too busy.
For me the problem centres in the fact that either i should be able to boot into linux or i should be able to install a fresh copy of linux.
coz my work on H.323 application for my university project might if not lost (data can be recoverd) but stopped for a while till i can boot or install linux

Well, if I understand everything correctly, the thing you need to do is to compile a new kernel somewhere, access Linux partitions and copy it as one of the old ones (so there's no need to change LILO configuration) and it should work if LILO is OK. If it's not, you need to put the kernel on a floppy and boot.
Not exactly. This site is a place where you can somehow meet people who've never seen XP and don't know anything about current MS product/solutions. That's it.

RCH:
If you really want to be technical its called LVM or logical volume management for linux not LDM. At least I think it is But hey I'm not a technical person.

heh mister know it all if you don't know about LDM why are you commenting it LDM means logical disk manager.
Check this out
http://<br /> <a href="http://sourc...ldm/</a><br />
now for mara thanks for your reply
i had not though of compiling my kernel and puting into my floppy
so i think this would be the best approach
i will try it out and will keep you all informed
and sorry for the technical users bit

well continueing in the dynamic disk question i tried to use the
rescue mode from my red hat 7.3 cd unfortunately i forget the thing i was talking about above red hat installer does not understand dynamic disk
so i got nowhere
now i thing the best approach as pointed by mara would be using a floppy
unfortunately for 2 days at least i can't use that approach since all the guys i know with linux in their pc are on holidays
so i will most likely get a new kernel by tuesday and then hopefully salvage my work and install a new kernel in the os enabling LDM
i will keep u all posted

well continueing with the dynamic disk problem
i needed no other computer to use my linux os
the steps that i did was
1.install a nice program called vmware-it allows one to create virtual machines thus also boot a os inside another os
2.install the minimum mandrake 8.0 inside a virtual machine
(takes around 4 mb space)
3.add glibc,gcc,make and kernel headers and source to installation manually later
4.compile the kernel enabling ldm support
5.copy the kernel image to the floppy disk
6.load the kernel with loadlin and root=<my mandrake root partition>(/dev/hda6)
7.replace the kernel of mandrake with the compiled one and make necessary changes (in lilo)
8.reboot
9.Thank god everything is ok

That's good.

did i say everything is ok
now i have another problem
i removed lilo from mbr
i can go into into any of my linux os
but while again installing lilo(lilo is removed)
LILO cannot be installed
the error message is: boot signature not found
i read the lilo documentation and got no idea
any ways

For someone who has so much technical knowledge you sure end up asking for lots of advice. A little bit of grace and social savvy would do you wonders, not to mention the use of the search and/or spell check buttons.

A search for raid should produce some results, I think that you're in a situation similar to one that I was recently in.


--Steve

guess i owe an apology
well of course my spellings are somewhat wrong
just remembered that english is not my mothertoungue
anyway thanks for reminding
about the boot signature problem there is a site called experts-exchange.com
on which the some information is available
unfortunately whatever i searched for through the net
i found no solution
and then only i came in this forum
also the same for the initial problem
i asked a ldm programmer too
he said that there was no chance for me to boot into my os
so i thought that i could come here for some help
i never said that i have "technical" knowledge
i only hoped that some guys who come here have
that was what i was hoping for
i had to write those words afer the first response becoz
of somebody asking me what is dynamic disk
that is all
hope you understand

marsonist, when you post you probably know the answer, it's a good idea to suggest it... The only person that may be angry is me, but I'm not. Let's stop, OK?

rch, I don't fully understand what you say. Is it solved?

well as i said if anybody's feelings is hurt becoz of me i am sorry
well for the problem i can boot into my os but unfortunately
there is no bootloader installed
well i was wondering if there is anyway i can install lilo
or any other boot loader as i can't now
i tried to install lilo on the volume containing the linux partition
(so that i can boot into it with ntbootloader) but it also failed

well the only thing i was asking for is if there is any boot loader available which supports dynamic disk
and if there is any way through which i can reinstall lilo
and marsonist i must add that i went through your suggestion and searched /and tried everything i could
but i just can't still install lilo
any help that you can give!