I've a question about (re)assigning /dev/hd* numbers.

>
>Now the first half of my drive is hd5 and my system is still looking for hd1.
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>How do I fix this?
>

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First I'd like to apologize for making this so lengthy and/or boring, but I'd like to explain how this happened.

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I partitioned my HD into halves initially for a Linux / XP config. I placed an empty half first, then a swap, and then the ext3. The reported config was hd1, hd5(swap) & hd6(ext3). I installed linux & left the XP side idle.

After several weeks, I decided it was time that I finished what I had started, so I got out my factory 'restore' CDs, popped them in and rebooted.

I got the usual notice about 'all data will be deleted', and remembered.. hmm, I've only done this on a non-partitioned disk.

I asked the HP folks and they assured.. the restore CDs will "only install the operating system in the first partition".

hm.. Great! okay, cool.

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I continued past that warning and then... some error comes up about LBA and CHS(?) data not matching.

I went back and checked the start sector of my swap, and then had the CD go ahead and fix whatever it was complaining about because it wanted to make what it found match up to that sector.

After a couple more similar, apparently simple & non-threatening correction notices, I got it installing.

Setup XP, blah, blah, blah...

After an hour or so, I get to my lilo screen again and send it back into linux to see if this all really worked.

The boot process starts - and after some of the usual stuff, the kernel 'panics' and halts the system.

hmm..

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I get out my liveCD and bring up the HD config tool to take a look at what's going on in there.

That's when I see that the hda partition is now all blue.

*grinds teeth*

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I did the 'rescue partition' option and it came back with more than it could assign and stopped.

There were some blue slivers on the left, the green swap looked intact, and the right half was blank.

I checked the sectors and, indeed, the swap was still fully intact. So at least I knew where the splits were and also that I had a chance to not go insane.

I deleted the blue slices, reassigned the right side to ext3, formatted the swap, and it booted right up. (Did I say I love this OS?) The only thing I had to do was remount the swap when I got back in. Oh and also thank all of my lucky stars that I didn't cause a meltdown or implode the universe. (or worse!) :|

Now the first half of my drive is hd5 and my system is still looking for hd1.

How do I fix this?

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Thanks! :)
- Linear_z -

Continuing on with my determined mission to have a dual boot system - as I said before, I got the disk halves back in place, but with a now shattered copy of XP I thought, "hm.. might as well dos boot the c: drive and format it to get things back in order." (of course instead of letting linux format and mkdosfs it)

I've got a dos boot cd, and that's really all I need for what I'm doing because the app I'm using is dos only anyway - & I thought that I could save the 50 bucks and use my HD for storage instead of a USB drive, and also trying to hack that to work. That's why I'm doing this.

okay.. got my linux back.. so let's dos format the primary partition. :|

but it again destroyed my partition table.

This time much worse, because my boot loader vanished. "no operating system" on power up. I at least had lilo before, but the kernel crashed on boot.

hmm...

I again checked with livecd harddrake config to see how badly microsoft had terrorized my disk.

totally blank.

I did rescue partition, but only the blue slivers on the first half showed up.

Thankfully, I committed the first sector of my old swap file to memory and also it's exact size.

Again I made a new swap, reassigned the second half of my HD to ext3, and formatted the first half to fat32. But the live CD would not reinstall lilo anywhere on the disk, or even a mke2fs'd floppy, because of... "error while trying to map files from unknown device 0x000b" I believe.

I spent all night trying to convince it to please let me have my machine back.

Then I thought. hm... I've got the whole half of my disk left yet to work with --> so I installed the entire live cd back to it.

Now I had a working OS.. 'and' it copied lilo to the disk.

On boot, it had the selection I made on install - and an hda6...

with a little reluctancy, I chose hda6 and crossed my fingers.

another lilo screen!

I had fooled around with it earlier, at some point before the restore CD incident and recognized the options. Incorrect for what I needed, but I recalled doing this nonetheless.

I picked linux, and blammo.. My data still resiliently there, all in one piece and refusing to back down.

I'm going to make this work yet. Oh yes.. I will.

- Linear_z -