Hi,

Somehow my W95 FAT32 partition was hidden, and windows can no longer see it.

I have tried changing the type through cfdisk but after a reboot nothing has changed.

1) Does anyone know how to change it back (make it not-hidden) ?
2) Does anyone know how this could possibly have happened ?

thanks !

Run the command:fdisk -l /dev/hda to get an idea of what things look like. The partition in question probably has an id of 1c, 1b or 1e .
You can change that from fdisk with the type command ( t ) . If your not sure what one to use, you can list them with list ( l ) .
Most likely the one you do want is c and that could explain how it got changed to something like 1c
Don't forget to write the table when you get it the way you want it to be.

I have tried using cfdisk, which shows the following:

Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hdb1 Boot Primary W95 FAT32 (LBA) 30000.15
hdb2 Boot Primary Hidden W95 FAT32 (LBA) 4999.94
hdb3 Boot Primary Hidden W95 FAT32 (LBA) 32504.80*
hdb4 Boot Primary Linux ext3 55437.46*

Then I choose type "0C" as the type for hdb2 and hdb3 (one at a time and both at one time has been tried) and write it, which seems to work. Then I reboot and everything is back to what you see above. Im sure I tell it to write the partition table, and I am the root user.
Can a wrong fstab set the hidden parameter ? (im quite lost at this point)

Thanks for the reply !

Try it without the 0 in front and I use a lower case c like this.... c

Hi,

I tried changing the partition type by writing 0c as you say in cfdisk, and then wrote the partition table - and when I exited and entered cfdisk again the patition was no longer hidden. After a reboot though, the partition was hidden again. So, I doubt the problem was the "0".

But, Im out of guesses, so please tell me (as I don't seem to be able to figure it out myself) what is the exact commands I need to use for fdisk: (I have moderately important data on the other partitions and am a bit scared).

1. Change a partition /dev/hdb2 from 1c to c, and write the partition table.

Thanks a bunch homie,

Troels

Hey
I had the same problem
and eventually found the solution
the cause is a new beature of LILO
LILO hides the partition when you boot,
to disable it,
add the lines:

change-rules
reset

to the start of lilo.conf
then run lilo
then change the partition back to what it should be
and reboot

thanks, I also found that LILO was the problem and solved it that way :-)