hmm... i was just looking ovre my partitions at the mandrake control panel > mount points and i have 4 partitions.. 1 windows partition, 1 swap partition, and TWO linux natives...

Device: hda5
type: linux native
size: 5.8GB [7%]
#and on the side it says Choose action: mount point, type, options, resize, format, delete.....
then theres a small green sliver [thats my swap]

and then tehres a huge red thing again on the top that has a /
[by the way in the blue partition it says /mnt/windows and then the second red one [hda5] has nothing written, the swap says swap but you can barely see the s cuz its so small box... and the giant red partition has a / in the middle..
its hda7 linux native ... 38 gigs, formatted, mounted, mount... point / .... and on the side it says choose action: options, unmount, use for loopback.. notice that hda7 has no "resize and delete and format options..a d type too... tell me what you think and what i should do.. i have no clue whats on hda5..

what does mounting do? if i mount it i can access data from it or something? ... its not empty.. [i think] because its 7% filled.. but i haveno clue whats ON it.. i can format and resize it.. but the type is linux native.. its 'ext2' type because its color coded : bright red is ext2 and journalized FS is darkred.. and more. but i only have bright red and green and blue.. [windows] .. !!

That's weird. /dev/hda5 on Mandrake should be the root fs of Mandrake and hda6 is swap and hda7 is /home. At least, by default.

But that's not how it sounds from what I can make of what you're saying about the GUI.

Mounting takes a disk or partition and incorporates it into the root file system at the mountpoint. So, yeah, if it's unmounted, you can't access it and, if it is mounted, you'll be able to 'cd' and 'ls' to get to and view the contents - or do so through a file manager.

Are you using KDE or Gnome? Like I say, if there's a shell icon thing or a kind of screen looking icon, that'd be your xterm and you could issue commands and paste the results here. Then things might be a little clearer. because *both* partitions can't be Mandrake root [/] partitions.

But, sure, if it's not mounted, go ahead and mount it and see what's on it. I'd prefer more partitions but you *can* install Slack on a single partition. If you somehow have a useless partition laying around, you may simply be able to use it. But I don't know... weird situation.

yeah thats what i was thiking.. whats weird is that its 7% .. so im like wtf... i was thinking if splitting it in half and then installing rh on one and then slack on another .. so that i wouldnt have to do the partition splitting again :-p .. imma mount it and see what it is later.. i on windows right now .. parents are downloadin something.. aiight thanks for your help bro.. yeah hda7 is / and hda5 is unmounted, which makes me think it cant be anything important for mandrake... what all would i have to do to make hda5 installable? .. format it? i was considering resizing it after i see whats on it and making 2 partitions.. so if i wanted to ever insall something or wanna boot 3 linuxes [thats possible right] i can do so.. thanks again for all your help digiot..

Well, it may have some kind of overhead if it's formatted but I'd think that would be trivial to non-existent - not any 7%. As far as making it installable, it's already partitioned. And it's apparently already formatted. So it should be good to go. Otherwise, yeah, 'mkreiserfs' or whatever you want, I think should do it. I think the number of Linuxes you could boot is only limited by the size of your hard drive and the number of partitions you can get on it - which is something like 32. So 3 is well within that limit. Good luck, again!

Oh - and if it is unmounted and Mandrake's happy, you're right that it can't be being used for anything but I'd *really* make sure about everything, anyway.

yes... atm i am on windows because im downloading slack after it so wonderfully FROZE at like 80% yesterday.. :-p ... but im ma get onto linux when its done and mount it, check it out, then try intalling RH and slack.. thnx for all your help! Also in lilo.. will it show like 'slackware linux' and 'mandrake' and 'windows'?

.. because at the moment it only shows "linux" and "old linux" since i messed up my comp from root :-p earlier on... i reinstalled it kinda.. but not really. i did an "update" with the same linux i installed it from so it says old linux [which boots properly also too now]

shoot.. i did it in the wrong order.. didnt even use parted.. i was using the mndrake tool for it... and umm.. :-p i ended up doing something else before mounting it.. [i had options to mount it earlier.. but to like /home, /usr and other sztuff.. but not in /mnt so im like wtf, so i decided to format it and it deleted everything... then i mounted it but i twas empty because it got deleted earlier :-/ .. i tried to boot in windows and windows registry error.. cant turn on.. :-/ i try to boot in safe mode and regular mode but wont lemme in.. registry missing or something like that :-/ mandrake still works.. and i got my mandrake partition, hda5 empty partition.. and i split it into half and the i got like 3 gigs of empty and a 3 gig partitoin too... any suggestions? there was one thing that said "run somethingregistry or regsomething [not regedit] to fix it or something like that... but im not sure how i'd DO that... any tips? i know this is a linux place but.. well i can only get into linux atm.. i tried installing RH but... it says it needs CD 2 too.... :-p .. or the files for cd2.. [weird.. i didnt need it in mandrake] . but im kinda screwed at the moment :-/ because i cant install slack..

1) no empty cds to burn it onto
2) i cant run rawwrite.exe because im in linux..

im sure theres a linux way to do it but i dont know that way yet so please tell me [to make a boot disk with the hard drive image on it.. or boot image]

To set up LILO, you'd install a Linux which would generate a lilo.conf and run LILO. So then, when you add a new Linux, you simply add it to lilo.conf, call it whatever you want, and run LILO again. Say you call 'em Slack, Debian, and NT - when you run LILO it'll tell you it added them.

*sigh* I'm not following what you're describing at all.

You deleted the mystery partition we were talking about with Mandrake without determining what was on it, encountered a problem with Windows, and kept on trying to throw Linux onto various partitions created by Mandrake and now nothing works *except* Mandrake? And where did MicroHat come from? I thought you were doing Mandrake and Slack?

As far as the CDs, a two pack of CD-Rs at the drugstore costs like three bucks - a big drum of CD-RWs costs like 15. I'm very frequently very broke but I can often manage to scrounge up three bucks.

For rawrite - I'm not sure what you're using it for, but do 'man dd' and see about using that tool - it performs basically the same function.

As far as recovering Windows, I really don't know - I've never lost one, so I've never used any of the tools except diskpart when I was trying to uncover a hidden partition. It's quite possible the partition you deleted wasn't Linux, but was a systems area for Windows. Though that would be bizarre in several ways - but then the whole situationis bizarre, isn't it? All I can say with that is to search for information on 'recovery console' and to try hitting F8 on attempting to boot into Windows.

It's kind of confusing when the game plan switches in midstream like this.

yeah but thanks for your help digiot.. i'll get slack installed no problem once i get it all downloaded and on a hard drive/cd,... thanks for your help!

either fluxbox or console