right. i'm much more with you now. so, if i don't want any windows partitions in my extended partition i can change the file system of the extended partition to a linux filesystem and windows will ignore it?

i have another hard disk you see so repartitioning isn't too much of a big deal for me as i can copy across from my hard disks. If my understanding is correct i'll change the FS of the ext part and if i ever need to change it back? i can copy the logical patitions to an extended partition on the other disk, recreate the extended partition and copy the logical partitions back. how's that?

a lot of this contradicts things said earlier in this thread doesn't it?

This is the ouput from fdisk -l

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 681 5470101 b Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda2 682 812 1052257+ b Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda3 813 1074 2104515 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda4 1075 2432 10908135 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 1075 1466 3148708+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 1467 1508 337333+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda7 1509 1663 1245006 83 Linux

you can see that hda4 is win95 fat32 as you suggested

Yes, if you aren't going to put windows anything in the extended switch it to a linux extended using fdisk.

/***I don't remember suggesting that the /dev/hda3 being changed to LBA, I just remember not remembering the exact label for the extended win95 LBA partition and I was too lazy to fire up my linux box and look for it. (On the larger than 20G drives, the bios should access the drive as LBA because it is more efficient. I've had fewer problems that way. But I think in that vein, windows is much like linux, I think it addresses the drive as LBA no matter what the flag if it is over a certain size--but I could be tragically wrong.)

But beware, I HAVE had XP and Win98se "burp" over multiple primary windows partitions. Things ended up mysteriously thrashed.

My personal experience and MS Knowledge base suggest very strongly that the first primary, the extended partition, the first logical, and the last logical (on a disk with no unallocated space) be windows in the case of multiple windows partitions. More than once, I have had windows "burp" and try to "fix" a non-windows partition--the MS filesystem checker ate more than one Mega-byte of a linux drive before giving up and reassigned the partition as an unrecoverable windows partition.

It happened to me twice before I figured it out.

(Really, I personally didn't figure it out. I was peeved and searched/read all of the newsgroups using keywords, both in MS based groups and linux ones. Finally, I ended up in the MSKB. I spent a few hours, and that appeared to be the majority opinion as to the cause of the problem.)

cheers, again eqwatz. the output above is as is now. those drives labelled LBA are like that now, i changed nothing!

so, just to double check, i can safely change the filesystem for hda4 ext

and the literature suggests:

hda1 Win98
hda2 Win -ext
hda3 Win98
hda4 Linux /
hda5 Linux /swp
hda6 Linux /home
hda7 Win98

for example? is having lots of primary partitions a generally bad idea, as opposed to using, one primary and a bunch of logical?

oh and you also mention unallocated space - i have loads, the disc is not full. not sure if that makes a difference...

er...dunno if you came back to my last post.

i followed your advice and changed hda4 to linux ext and windows still sees a "ghost" d drive.

i made no other changes, above where i said "as you suggested" i meant as you suspected! i didn't change anything until this post!

could the fact that hda3 has (LBA) (whatever this means) be the cause of the problem? as i said it has always been like that.

LBA means Logical Block Address. If you don't know what that is, why are you attempting to do administrative tasks like partitioning a drive?

You really need to look up documentation--I am serious.

http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/mini/Partition/
This is the mini-howto on partitions.

There are also introductions to administration and partitioning for multiple boot situations on the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

If you have difficulty in understanding the terms and technical aspects of the different articles--don't feel overwhelmed and give up.

The world has become very specialized, simply because the volume of information has become so huge.

A brain surgeon is not a computer scientist. He has to start from the beginning and learn just like anybody else.

It is merely an investment in patience and time. If everything is running at this point, leave it alone--look around for a local Linux user-group in your area and contact them. See if you can take your computer to an "install-fest" and have someone straighten it out for you.

You need to read up on the stuff I am talking about.

http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/Large-Disk.html#toc4

Is an oldie but goodie. It explains about the history and changes that were made to accommodate large drives.

It is impossible to intelligently discuss different strategies and layouts if you steadfastly refuse to look up documentation.

Interpretation means a great deal. And no one's personal experience should supersede the different HowTos and guides available to you at Microsoft and The Linux Documentation Project. That is what they are there for.

Microsoft users look up documentation all of the time. Before I started using Linux, I was always reading documentation on the various MS network sites.

It is simply something one has to do if they are going to approach any problem without the standard "Re-install" bogus crap you receive from MS support.

cheers for your detailed response. i recognise the need to read things - have in the past and i will continue to do so - appreciate the pep talk tho

i am surprised that knowing what the LBA is so critical, I have used three different partition tools and the first time i ever saw LBA mentioned was when i ran fdisk -p, aside from that not even a mention anywhere else. sure i have been spoiled in the past.

i sorted out my problem, cheers for your help. i change the ext to linux with fdisk but that didn't work. i changed it with my partition software and it worked - mixing partition software probably v bad but it's working and i plan not to screw about much more!

BTW: I haven't had the time to check out Firebird and Flux box. How are they?

I am very glad you got the ghost-drive situation solved. Keep good backups. I know, I know--standard nagging.

But, I had a triple--or really a quintuple--boot with Win98se/Win2000/XP/RH-9/SuSE, and I've never been sure exactly what hosed it all up.

I asked around, and others believe it may have been a combination of using Imaging software (Acronis) and having Norton SystemWorks on the Win98se partition. (The reason for the combination was a $9.00 special price updated Acronis TrueImage for Ghost users deal.) I have to stay up on Win98 because of the people who still use it--if I don't stay familiar with each one, I end up wasting a bunch of time re-learning everything on someone elses' time (they hate that).

Bottom line? I had to spend a great deal of time trying to find stuff on a hosed-up /home file system. The first 2M was just plain gone--and it had been re-badged as a totally corrupted FAT-32 partition.

Originally, I had copies of everything running in VM-Ware on my main workstation. I had the unfortunate experience of installing a brand new (I didn't test it first before putting it on a "critical" machine), but bad IDE controller which absolutely destroyed everything--and yes, I hadn't backed up any of the VM-Ware machine images.

It was faster to just hammer images onto a hard drive partition than re-install to VM-Ware.

well, as i'm sure you know firebird and fluxbox both walked their catagories in the Members Choice awards.

I started using firebird in windows a while ago. I always wanted to use something other than IE but Netscape just had too much crap/bloat. I never tried Mozilla.

The things i like most about the firebird project is the way that even tho it is contributed to by loads of people it's still really organised - the web pages are great and the forums are pretty active. Having a themeable browser is nice but being able to choose your extentions is the best bit - you generally get to pick from a few that do the same thing but *you* get the choice, you can have none or 50 and that choice really appeals!

Not so impressed by thunderbird but it is several releases behind FB.

Fluxbox is great - i first saw it in Damn Small - I also liked the look of XFCE when i tried Morphix light.

Vector is released with Fluxbox, XFCE and IceW but i went straight for fluxbox. It's really easy to configure once you get to know it, so you have to do some reading () but once you know a bit you can change loads. I really like it - it's the most fun i ever had (with a window manager)! Infinitely better than trying to compile and install themes in KDE which I *never* got to work properly! Basically it's small and fast and you build from there and that's why i like it! cool people at the forums too.

I've spent the majority of my time in RedHat as you might have guessed.

I've read of the different window managers and Desktop clients, but never invested enough time in them.

I do agree, though, about the "bloat" in KDE and GNOME. On the other hand, building all of the GUI admin tools from packages doesn't appeal to me. I also have always been disappointed with the performance of open office and the larger browsers.

Another thing I find puzzling is how long it takes the different editors to fire up in the GUI.

I've been told that everything in GNOME uses the same tool-sets and widgets and so they load faster. I don't know.


It seems that they are really wanting to improve the performance of all of the available plug-ins and built-in applications--so you end up having to wait for everything to load.

With Mozilla and Konqueror, if you don't set everything to open on different tabs instead of different windows you have to wait for everything to load in a separate instance of the application for every window. Even though this is supposed to be a sacrifice for stability, I have still had every instance of Konqueror crash or freeze--and the same can happen with Mozilla, albeit far less often.

I have been informed that the Debian package management is much improved.

I'm just going to have to invest more time.

have had a change of heart. currently i am partitioned thus:

hda1 Win98
hda2 Win 98
hda3 Win98
hda4 Linux ext
hda5 Linux /
hda6 Linux /swp
hda7 Linux /home

can i safely change hda4 back to Win ext?

then by copying hda3 to another hard disk then deleteing it and resizing win ext (what will then be hda3) then i will copy the old hda3 to hda4. which will make it:


hda1 Win 98
hda2 Win 98
hda3 Win ext
hda4 Win 98
hda5 Linux /
hda6 Linux /swp
hda7 Linux /home

will that work? based on all you said and things i have seen this does seem to be the safest way!

just resurrecting this thread - i finally followed all of eqwatz advice and this is the current situation - i think the problem is clear

this is how it was:

hda1 Win98
hda2 Win 98
hda3 Win98
hda4 Linux ext
hda5 Linux /
hda6 Linux /swp
hda7 Linux /home

this is what i changed it to

hda1 win98
hda2 win ext
hda5 win98
hda6 /
hda7 /swp
hda8 /home
hda9 win98

now, that is according to the "best practice", 1st and last in extended partition are windows - the problem is where the hell did hda3 and hda4 go?

There are now two blank entries in the MBR showing 0 for all the settings - i think this is the probelm but i don't know how to fix it

ok! i now understand why that is, hda1-4 are set aside for primary partitions but now i have noticed that i have C, D and E for my hard disks in windows but my cdrom is now G!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!

why?

why isn't it F? i just tested a boot from a floppy to win98 and that made a RAM disk called F - could that still be hanging on somehow? can't be sure that CD wasn't G before tho.

Windows is certainly hard to figure out as it assigns letters to partitions as well as drives.

# Microsoft Windows help sites
Windows BBS
Computing.net
Annoyances.org
Microsoft's Computer Management