i tried to install windows to dual boot so i can play half-life 2 =P but after i installed it in some free space i had made by removing a spare partition, it just came up and said "missing operating system".

I use mandrake 10.0 so i used the rescue tool on the install disk and reinstalled by lilo bootloader, but i ran fdisk and it gives this weird output... if i try to remove /dev/hda2 it removes all of my partitions...

i have no idea what's going on.. and i can't seem to install windows because of this /dev/hda2...

anyone ever have this problem, or have any idea what's going on?

/dev/hda5 is my root partition, /dev/hda6 is my swap, and /dev/hda7 is my home partition... /dev/hda2 shouldn't be there and starts on the same sector my root does and ends on the last sector of my home.... i don't understand this at all...


Disk /dev/hda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 232581 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda2 116281 232581 58615704 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 116281 128470 6143728+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 128471 129485 511528+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda7 129486 232581 51960352+ 83 Linux

Command (m for help):

As the info at the end of your post indicates, /dev/hda2 is an extended partition, which is divided into three partitions for Linux. So. Where's hda1, the primary partition? What's installed there? When you removed an extra partition to install windows, did you format that partition for windows? Or, did you try to install windows into a partition formatted for Linux?
As Jhonny 5 would say: "need more input". Post your /etc/fstab.

This is normal.

hda2 is an extended partition and in a nutshell a container for logical drives. It does not get mounted. A Logical partition is anything >=5.

Your not using blocks 1-116280 and therefore you should be able to create a hda1. I would create the partition in linux and then windows install should work.

In addition you will need to reinstall the bootloader after install windows.

/dev/hda5 / ext3 defaults
none /dev/pts devpts mode=0620 0 0
/dev/hda7 /home ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hda1 /home2 vfat umask=0 0 0
/dev/hdb /mnt/cdrom auto umask=0,user,codepage=850,iocharset=iso8859-1,noauto,ro,exec 0 0
/dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom2 auto umask=0,user,iocharset=iso8859-1,codepage=850,noauto,ro,exec 0 0
none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/sda,fs=ext2:vfat,--,umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-1,sync,codepage=850 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0)
/dev/hda6 swap swap defaults 0 0



there's my fstab, i have no idea why there is no /dev/hda1, i made a fat32 partition for windows to be on and formatted it and the windows xp installer doesn't even find it...

it only says "empy space 55 gb", and then lists my 3 linux partitions as unknown.

but the W95 ext'd partition is supposed to be there?

ok, i tried to install again, it still came up with the "Missing operating system" error

/dev/hda1 * 1 116280 58605088+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 116281 232581 58615704 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 116281 128470 6143728+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 128471 129485 511528+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda7 129486 232581 51960352+ 83 Linux

it seems that it actually made the ntfs partition... and set it to boot... so what could possibly be wrong now?

i've dual booted before like this but the windows partition stopped working, so i deleted it and make it into an extra ext3 partition to store stuff on... but i ended up not needing that so i decided to reinstall windows for halflife 2...

so i deleted the ext3 thing and lets the windows xp installer do it's magic on the free space... but XP won't boot after copying the files over to install... what in the world is going on?