I installed Mandrake 9.1 my HD that had win98, after few problems I managed to cut 6gb (fat32) partion from my hd (40gb) and install linux in there. Everything works fine in linux, but now my windows shows that I have 3 different partions:

C: Windows (32gb)
E: Linux (fat32 6gb) that i made
and D: (no info)

The problem is that a window doesn’t understand this new d: drive. (Ext3?) When Using explorer or anything that accesses to D:, my windows freezes for few minutes and my hd goes wild. This makes working in windows almost impossible.
So is there any way to hide my linux from windows?
Or is there maybe some another solution?

Thanks.

Try this
Right click on My Computer and go to Manage. Within that access the Disk Management menu that is under storage. There u shld see the various partitions listed there. try changing the options. But be careful, you might end up deleting ur partitions and losing all your data.

I suffered the same problem. This is how I solved:

The key is windows NEVER HAS TO SEE what will become a linux partition as a formatted one but as raw unpartitioned disk.

So first you have to erase you linux. You CAN'T avoid this.

Then, the order:

- ERASE THE linux partition (with fdisk or Disk Management). Remember, no partition at all on that 6GB (no linux format, no FAT format,....). Reboot windows several times until you can assure windows sees it as empty unpartitioned disk.
- Then reinstall linux.

The problem comes from windows "marking" the linux partition as "visible". If windows sees it as unpartitioned disk it will forget about it. If windows HAD a partition, it will think it is there for it's use although it's moved into a linux one. And it will not FORGET about it until you destroy it.

This works ok. It's confirmed from many other people.