I had a Manrake 10.0 install with a custom 2.6.3 kernel

This kernel was customized to allow it to soft st roke and ignore my old AWARD BIOS.

I tried later, to install Windows to a premade FAT32 Partion ,t he first in the drive... and theinstall wiped out the rest of the Linux installations.

After resetting it up, remaking the custom kerenl, it won't see the old partition contained within the new space.

1) how do i recover it?

2) Can irecover it without the custom kernel? The custom kernel can't read my mouse or my wlan0 device.

Huh! Saying it again with better grammar.

Okay.. I'll try a mdoular format if it helps


System:

1998 Award BIOS
K7 Processor
Mandrake 10.0 with precompiled 2.6.3-5 kernel
Custom 2.6.6 kernel installed.
80 GB Maxtor IDE Hard Drive




Problems

Cannot access partion beyond the 32 GB marker.
Kernel 2.6.6 which can detect it is not detecting the partion - or the mouse/usb device while dmesg says they're there


Details


Problem A: Cannot access partition beyod the 32 GB marker
The precompiled 2.6.3 kernel cannot read it, or detect it. Is there a way to fix this without patching an upgrade to the kernel.

Problem B : Cannot get usb wlan0 to work or mouse
USB WLAN0 is an linkys instant wirless 2.6 (atmel) and it gives cannot be found or started errors, but the mouse simply turns on without doing anything, i.e the optical lght is on

'Cannot access partition beyond 32 Gb marker'

Are you sure you set the jumper correctly on the hard drive when you put it in your computer? This is the first thing I would check. Take out the hard drive and have a look at the jumper settings.
I had the same problem before myself.