It doesn't look like it is mounting all three...

Here is the screenshot of what I have in XP.

I'm thinking it mounts each one successively till the last which happens to be the linux part. Not that it matters.

What you need to do is fairly complex and involves removing your linux install, fixing your XP MBR to remove the Grub bit ie you will boot straight into XP. Then deleting the extended parts that contained linux and reinstalling as primary partitions easy

Simpler would be to get yourself a second HD and install linux on that , you wouln't have to remove Grub and you could convert the existing extended parts into more FAT32 space.

I'm running it on a Laptop...

Umm - how come its so stuffed up?

I sorta remember doing something when I might have mounted the wrong hda at some stage or something, but I don't see how that could stuff things up so bad in XP.

Surely there is an easier fix?

I just want my E partition back :P

When I first put Linux on here, E drive had nothing on it...
E was just going to be for my doucment files.
Is there anyway to see what exactly is on E drive? - That way I could just work out whether I could just re-format E drive...

Of course Edrive isn't a whole drive, its just a partition.

Because its impossible to see hda6 (swap) and hda7 (linux) in XP, E: is showing you the Backup partition hda3.
In linux everything seems to go well, as you said. So this is a XP problem. Dommy's solutions will work, but there has to be a more simple way.
I don't know much about XP but besides the C and E disks XP should be another disk with your documents on it (former E).

As compmgmt/mmc sees the disk, maybe there's an option in there to assign a driveletter to it? Maybe right clicking on the DOCUMENTS device in mmc offers you some configuration?

BTW,

I see you have 2 primary partitions and 1 extended partition (hda, hda2, hda3) ... If I remember well, all windows cannot handle more than that two primary partitions or a primary and an extended. So you may need to repartition every thing ... a lot of work.

If hda1 is no needed, you may be able to "unify" hda1&hda2 using e.g. Partition Magic, so you will be left with a primary and an extended. You may need also to modify /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/menu.lst.

Edgar.

Ok Guys - thanks heaps...

I remember installing a lil program ext2fs which allows explorer to map linux in Windows - which seems to be what has happened?

Anyway - I did a system restore and now I have my files back in Windows.
I havn't yet booted into Linux since then, but will let you know how it fairs and if anything goes kaplunk from there, maybe the problem is a lil more serious than I expected.

Cheers for all your help.