Dual boot problem
 

Hello!

My problem is that in Windows ME the order of drives has changed after installing linux as follows. (I suspect that the problem results from the fact that I use two primary partitions in Windows ME.)

I divided my harddrive in three primary partitions with FIPS. Then I have used the 2(!) primary partitions C: and D: drives with Windows ME.
Some while ago I installed Mandrake Linux 8.1 to the third partition and the problems started...

Now the partition table is (using fdisk in linux)

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 893 7172991 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda2 894 1663 6185025 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda3 1664 1714 409657+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 1715 2434 5783400 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 1715 1902 1510078+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 1903 2115 1710891 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 2116 2379 2120517 83 Linux
/dev/hda8 2380 2434 441724+ 82 Linux swap

If I now boot to Windows ME with the following commands with Grub (pasted from menu.lst)
..
title windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
..

Then in Windows ME the C: drive looks OK, but the previously named D: drive has changed to E: and the previously empty E: drive has now changed to D: with 0 byte size (says RAW in properties).

QUESTION: Has anybody got an idea what this "empty D: drive" is and how do I get rid of this "empty drive D:", so that E: drive is again D: drive?

I have tried lilo as well with no success.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

Mika

Hey Mika!

It looks like you already know the problem. Logical Block Addressing (LBA) is needed because you have a big disk. On my dual boot system, the boot partition is right after the first FAT32 partition, and the linux partitions are enclosed in a windows compatible partition (to fool the bad kids in the playground).

1. Try changing your /dev/hda4 partition id to Win95 Ext'd (LBA) using the

# fdisk /dev/hda
# t

(system will prompt for the partition number and label)

See what that gives you. It could be that your partition scheme is confusing the LBA system. Is there any reason you need Win Me on 2 partitions? If not, I'd suggest you keep it only on one partition and use the LBA system to boot into your linux partitions at /dev/hda3 and /dev/hda5.

2. In redhat, the boot partition has to be small (around 18Mb). Your bootable linux partition looks big - but maybe Mandrake does things like that.

3. lilo won't work with Win Me as lilo uses DOS to boot but Win Me doesn't.

g'luck

Thanks for the suggestions, Bert!

I changed my /dev/hda4 partition id to Win95 Ext'd (LBA) with fdisk.

Now Win Me sees the C: and D: drives as I wanted. (E: drive is not visible)

You're welcome :)