Hi

I have got a HP Pavillion Laptop. HP laptops are having one D7 type partition for a feature called quick play (ie to play music,videos without actually booting the OS).This partition is generally hidden. I made an ext3 and swap partition and installed a fedora based distribution. When I rebooted windows after installing Linux that partition became visible and quick play stopped working. Then I just made that partition hidden.

Now I have restored my laptop to original condition and just created an ext3 partition and a swap partition. Now I have to install Fedora Core 6. Just wanted to see experts comments about the same. Is it again going to make that partition visible or how to avoid this ?

Thanks
Sidhu

How do you actually "make a partition hidden"? Or what do you mean by that?

It sounds (to me) that the "problem" relies in the bootloader or something. When you install Fedora, you'll be installing (usually) a Linux bootloader, GRUB in this case I believe, and..well, maybe it overrides some HP's own thingie that knows how to deal with the "player-partition". The "hidden" partition must contain an operating system of some kind, because it's not just a bunch of files that suddenly turn alive and start playing all by themselves when you boot...so maybe it's about configuring GRUB correctly for that partition? Or not install GRUB at all and use Windows' bootloader to load Linux?

Thanks b0uncer...

well to make the partition hidden I changed the id of that partition using fdisk (changed it into Hidden FAT, I dont recall that number right now). It was hidden after then i.e. was not shown by windows. But when I tried to access that HP'quick play thing, it simply booted into windows.

as second point you made, yea I installed GRUB as a boot loader and another thing you said that it overwrote that HP thing...probably you are right. That HP thing has something to do with boot loader (I read it on internet only, if you have got some time please have a look at this link http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/mediadirect.htm)

yea i cud see the contents of that partition when it became visible, it looked like an installation of windows and when I access that quick play function, windows actually boots up but at the end only "that HP player thing" runs. it intimates as we boot windows from a hibernated session.

now can you give little details about "configuring GRUB correctly for that partition" and also how to use windows boot loader for linux ?

Thanks
Sidhu