FAT partition data visible in Linux, but not in DOS/windows?

broadcom · 09-25-2007, 09:25 AM

Before installing Linux, I used Partition Magic for Windows to resize my partitions to make space for an ext3 partition.

The operation left me with a FAT32 partition where windows could not see any files (wants to format it), but in Linux the partition is visible and quite functional.

Does anybody have any ideas why Linux can see this partition (sda1) and Windows can't?

Code:

dosfsck reports no errors.

Output from fdisk:

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1         751     6032376    b  W95 FAT32
/dev/sda2             752        8964    65970922+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda3            8965        8995      249007+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4            8996        9729     5895855   83  Linux
/dev/sda5             752        8964    65970891    7  HPFS/NTFS


Output from cfdisk:

Partition Table for /dev/sda

         ---Starting---      ----Ending----    Start     Number of
 # Flags Head Sect Cyl   ID  Head Sect Cyl     Sector    Sectors
-- ----- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----------- -----------
 1  0x80    1    1    0 0x0B  254   63  750          63    12064752
 2  0x00    0    1  751 0x0F  254   63 1023    12064815   131941845
 3  0x00  254   63 1023 0x82  254   63 1023   144006660      498015
 4  0x00  254   63 1023 0x83  254   63 1023   144504675    11791710
 5  0x00    1    1  751 0x07  254   63 1023          63   131941782

jiml8 · 09-25-2007, 12:21 PM

I don't see anything wrong with the first partition based upon the output you have provided. Try using the Windows repair console to run chkdsk on it and see if you get it back.

Beyond that, you might just copy all the stuff off of it, let Windows format it, then copy all the stuff back.

Your hard drive organization is weird. I have seen some others that look like this, and I am just now making the connection that this is happening when people use Partition Magic. This causes me to revise what I recommend, and from now on I will recommend that people NOT use Partition Magic.

You are showing an extended partition as your second partition, with physical third and fourth partitions. While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, the last partition on the drive SHOULD BE an extended partition so that IT can be subdivided/extended as necessary. Clearly Partition Magic cannot handle this.

The consequence of the organization you now have is that you won't be able to add any more partitions in the future, unless you shrink your NTFS partition to make room. I don't know how any of the partition managers would handle that; you might have trouble.

broadcom · 09-25-2007, 03:34 PM

Yes, I've done a lot of repartitioning on this drive with partition magic over the years.... Eventually it did fall over trying to shrink the NTFS partition.

I couldn't get windows recovery console to see the partition and chkdsk said file system type was RAW. So I've resorted to a reformat and am busy copying files back now. Thanks for the support!