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Old 09-20-2003, 05:13 PM   #1
Rundi
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Exclamation Will windows write over Linux?


I am a new to linux, and here is my story:

(1) My computer had a 4 gb hard drive with windows 98 installed on it.

(2) I installed a Maxtor 30 gb hard drive and formatted it so that windows could see it.

(3) I installed Mandrake 9.1 and used it's install program to split the 30 GB hard drive--half for linux and half for windows.

(4) Now I have Mandrake 9.1 installed, and it runs, but when I look at the hard drive in windows explorer it says I still have the full hard drive available.

This has me utterly stumped. I expected the size of the windows hard drive to shrink by half when I used Mandrake to take half of the space for Linux. But it is as if Windows doesn't recongize anything has happened to the hard drive. Right now I have a plan, unaltered install of Mandrake, but I'm terrified that if I start using the hard drive in windows I'll somehow write over Mandrake.

What is going on, and how do I fix it?
 
Old 09-20-2003, 05:32 PM   #2
Electro
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Mandrake could be using FAT32.

In LINUX Open up a terminal program. Login as root or su and type fdisk -l

If you don't have anything on the Maxtor drive. Run fdisk in DOS. Make 15 gigabyte primary partition. Next make 15 gigabyte extended partition with one logical partition. Reboot and format only the primary partition as FAT32 (I think it will be the D drive). Then install LINUX again on the extended or logical partition. Put the bootloader on the windows 98 disk. Either LILO or GRUB can be used.

You can get by using 8 or 6 gigabytes for LINUX.
 
Old 09-20-2003, 05:33 PM   #3
BajaNick
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I dont know for sure but I doubt that windows would write over linux cuz they are 2 completly different file systems. Windows probably just sees the space it saw before the mandrake install.
 
Old 09-20-2003, 05:55 PM   #4
Skyline
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Rundi :

Windows has a hard job recognizing anything to do with Linux - I wouldnt worry about it - on one of my computers Win98se only recognises its own partitions and has no awareness of my Linux partitions - personally, I'm not bothered as it has no influence on me being able to multiboot and mount Windows partitions in Linux etc etc etc etc...... - if you want to know how to dual boot or mount partitions etc etc repost
 
Old 09-20-2003, 09:27 PM   #5
Rundi
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Answers and Clarifications

Thanks to all who responded so quickly. I'll try to give a few quick answers.

To Electro:

I don't think my installed copy of Mandrake is using FAT 32. I have Mandrake installed on the Maxtor, and am using the boot loader lilo. It works. I'm willing to try the fdisk -l (was that an L?) in Linux terminal, but could you tell me what it will do?

To BanjaNick:

I admit that I think windows explorer is seeing what it saw before I installed Linux. But this is exactly what concerns me. If windows is still operating under the delusion that it has the entire hard drive to itself, won't it eventually write over my Mandrake Linux?

To Skyline:

I'm not interested in Win98se recongizing the partition per se . . . but it seems to me that it is important for windows to not think it has more disk space than it actually does. When Mandrake repartitioned the windows hard drive and took some of the space for itself, I expected all of those gigabytes to, as it were, magically disappear from win98's perception--as you say, Windows doesn't recongize Linux.

However, this isn't what happened. Windows still thinks it has all the hard drive in the world, and with Linux already hogging space, such a preception seems doomed to only bring trouble further down the road.

I already know how to dual boot, and I'm pretty sure I can access my windows drive from Linux. Anyhow, I'm not up to getting at windows stuff from within Linux--yet. Right now I want to make sure everything is cool with my hard drive formatting.

Thanks again for all the response, and I'd be glad to hear from anyone who can offer further help.
 
Old 09-20-2003, 09:44 PM   #6
michaelk
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The -l option with fdisk is a small L. And it will not do anything except output a list of the partition tables for all drives on your PC.

Windows will ignore any partition that are not a FAT file system type. If it is true that window thinks the windows partition is actually bigger than it is you might have a corrupted FAT and could possible overwrite data in the linux partitions.

You could try running scandisk on the windows partition and see it finds any errors.
 
Old 09-25-2003, 10:41 AM   #7
Rundi
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What I found

Sorry for not getting back sooner. I was out of town for a few days.

I ran scan disk in windows and no problems were found.

I went into linux and ran fdisk -l . . . . the results are about what I would expect, I think. The windows partitions are FAT32 and the linux partitions are something else. The one thing that is puzzling me is I seem to have one more partition than I thought. I have the boot windows partition on the 4 GB hard drive. Then I have another windows parition on the second 30 GB drive. Then I should have three linux partitions (swap, and two other). But this leaves me with one more partition. What the heck is part2 with its xtended format?

The information is posted below. (The text lines are a bit broken up--sorry about that). If anyone can help me out I will be thankful.

Disk /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc: 4303 MB, 4303756800 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 555 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id S ystem
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 * 1 555 4195768+ b W in95 FAT32

Disk /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/disc: 30.7 GB, 30750031872 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3972 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id S ystem
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part1 * 1 2026 15316528+ c W in95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part2 2027 3972 14711760 5 E xtended
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part5 2027 2838 6138688+ 83 L inux
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part6 2839 2905 506488+ 82 L inux swap
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0/part7 2906 3972 8066488+ 83 L inux
 
Old 09-25-2003, 01:42 PM   #8
michaelk
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The way drives were originally designed they could only have 4 partitions (primary). But since they were growing in capacity in giant leaps 4 wasn't enough anymore. To get around the 4 primary partition limit an extended partition was created. It is a container for logical partitions. Logicals are numbers 5 and up.

What does windows tell you is the size of the d: drive? It should be ~15gb. The rest of the drive is used by linux. It doesn't appear that you have a problem.
 
Old 09-25-2003, 01:58 PM   #9
Rundi
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That is the problem

Thanks for sticking with me michaelk -

When you say the windows partition "It should be ~15gb. The rest of the drive is used by linux" you are saying exactly what I think should be the case as well.

Unfortunately, and the entire reason I started this thread, when I open up windows explorer and look at the drives properties windows says:

--48 KB used

--30,700,000 KB free (28.6 GB) FREE(!!!!)


So . . . linux tells me the truth, and windows tells me I don't have a single thing on the drive, even when I have Mandrake, Openoffice, and a whole horde of other things installed. It boggles my mind how windows can delude itself into thinking it has all 30 GB to itself when linux manifestly says that half of it is not.

Seems like a train wreck about to happen.

Has anyone else had this trouble?
 
Old 09-25-2003, 02:16 PM   #10
codec
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In my PC, I use ranish partition manager:

dev/hda1 - fat32 <-- for win98
dev/hda2 - ext2fs for redhat
dev/hda3 - linux swap
dev/hda4 - fat32 for no-secret-data-storage

I have 2 more partitions installed but it's all u need to know for now.
 
Old 09-28-2003, 11:20 AM   #11
Rundi
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Victory . . . sort of

I finally forced Windows into a corner. I reinstalled Linux and reformatted the entire 30 GB drive for Linux. Windows no longer recongizes the hard drive, which is as it should be.

Now, could somebody tell me how to go about giving some of the hard disk space back to windows? I went to this extreme measure of reformatting everything for Linux just to get Windows to recongize the truth. I hoping that if I give Windows some of the hard drive now, it will recongize only the amount I give it, not more.

So how would I go about taking away some of the disk space from Linux and formatting it back to windows FAT32?
 
Old 09-28-2003, 12:06 PM   #12
michaelk
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Use GNU parted to resize linux partitions. You will need to boot the 1st CD to rescue mode because you can not resize on a mounted partition. For documentation just search for gnu parted.

Or you can use Partition Magic if you have it.

Create a partition for windows. It does not have to be on the 1st partition but it does have to be a primary. Be sure to set the partition boot flag.

Since windows will wipe out the bootloader be sure to create a emergency boot floppy if you haven't already. That way the floppy will boot right into linux.

Boot the win98 CD, format the partition and install.

Edit /etc/lilo.conf to add an entry to boot Windows, then run /sbin/lilo.

You can also boot the 1st CD to rescue mode and restore the bootloader. You can then modify lilo.conf to add windows.

lilo is the default bootloader for MDK if using grub then modify the grub.conf file.
 
Old 09-29-2003, 09:18 AM   #13
Rundi
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OK

I wouldn't mind a bit more hand holding for this. It feels intimidating . . .

First, I need to make clear that I don't need to install windows. I reformatted my 30 GB so it is entirely windows, but the master boot record is on my 4 GB drive which has windows 98se installed. Thus, I think, all I am trying to do is get a FAT32 partition on my 30 GB hard drive. Windows shouldn't need to install anything and I shouldn't need to mess with my boot loader.

Also, what do you mean by booting to the 1st CD to rescue mode? I understand the idea of not being able to modify a drive that is mounted, but my 1st Mandrake CD loads up the installer program. What is rescue mode?

Before I asked about resizing partitions in this thread I tried to do it all by myself, and mucked it up throughly. That is why I am now hesitant.

My windows data is on a seperate hard drive and I don't yet have data on my Linux partitions that can't be reinstalled. But I still would like to get it right this time.

I will read the gnu parted documentation, and see how more confused I get.
 
Old 10-02-2003, 05:37 PM   #14
Rundi
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Victory at last

Okay, I have finally and totally fixed this problem!!!

Much thanks to Michaelk and all others who tried to help me through this problem.

I admit my final solution was not very brilliant, but this is what I did:

Rather than trying to figure out how to unmount my hard drive and modify the partitions from the console I simply reinstalled Mandrake and used the partitioning tool it comes with to resize the partition, format the section for Fat32 and reinstall Mandrake on the portion it was supposed to have.

It worked brillantly. Windows now recongizes that it has 12 GB on the hard drive, no more, no less. Mandrake is installed and works.

Geez . . . I've reinstalled Linux so many times by this point. But I guess a man has to learn somehow.

Thanks again for all the help.
 
  


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