Okay, this is a polite request for technical information, but I didn't find a more appropriate place to ask:

Lately, I played with dd, and guess what, I leveled the MBR and the partition table of my primary drive . A partially dismembered part of my SuSE survived on /dev/hdb but in the end I had to reinstall everything: DOS on /dev/hda1, WinNT on /dev/hda2 and SuSE on the rest.

On my secondary drive remained one vfat-partition and one NTFS partition of the previous WinNT-installation, which I kept for the time being. And now it comes.

NT4.0 could not detect them (error: corrupted or foreign file-systems)

NT4.0 SP4 could detect but not access them, but I could assign sensible drive letters to the partitions .

NT4.0 SP5 no change.

NT4.0 SP6a can access the vfat partition, but not the NTFS-partition.

I have yet to upgrade to 128-bit encryption (package is on the NTFS-"corrupted or foreign file-systems"-partition), perhaps that will help.

Here is my question for all the gurus out there:

What the heck is Linux doing better to be able to read my "lost" data, which Windows obviously can't do with its native file system?? And just HOW does it do that / what impedes NT?

Or is it so that Linux fdisk changed something in a way to faze poor old NT?

Any insights, explanations or comments will be highly appreciated (Comments on my use of dd please to /dev/null ).

If during SuSE installation you formatted NTSF partition, that can be the problem. Try to reformat it with Partition Magic under WinNT.

NT4's version of NTFS is old. There have been a lot of improvements (okay, changes) to it since. For example, WinXPs filesystem reads as NTFS5, so it must be at least a 5th revision. The encryption is likely what's holding you back. These things are not foreward compatible. Think about my situation as an example. I have a Rage128 Pro vid card, SB Live! sound, and Linksys Network Everywhere NIC, all of which won't work with Windows 98, but after I get the drivers, it will work (as well as 98 will...). You must have made those partitions after you upgraded the service packs.

Linux can read them because its newer and still bening developed as we write.
Have I helped?

No, I didn't. These are originally Windows' partitions, created by the first OS-install. What I was wondering was rather, whether Linux fdisk changes something in the partition table during the new Linux installation -- small chance, I know, but not impossible.

Oh, yes, I also use LVM (logical volume manager).

Okay, agreed.

But why? And no, I did not create the partitions after the upgrade (which was necessary for internetbanking and so came later than the computer, which had them from the start).



Not yet, but a beginning is to be seen .

I wasn't really referring to when you actually created the partitions, even though I referred to it that way. Sorry. I think that as Microsoft released new service packs, it changed and modified the filesystem as it was "improved". Every service pack is a big modification to your entire OS, usually, which is why IT managers are hesitant to upgrae with every new patch. They are usually more cautious about that, as a lot of "upgrades" actually have caused problems. You know the saying, patch the patch...

GRRRRrr. That sounds plausible, but no backward compatibility with their own products ... stealth-patching, that's what that would be.

Do you know the way to find out the NTFS-version numbers of a given installation?

Actually, forward compatibility. 2000 can read NT

I noticed, I think (no windows on here anymore - big drive died), when I did either an fdisk or checked the partition as it was mounted from Linux with "df" that the XP partition read as type NTFS5 (or, maybe I just read it at a site somewhere - that doesn't help you). I did go through this phase on wanting to know how the various filesystems worked (that's really heavy stuff). Can you access SP8 from the net?

BTW, if you go to technet, you should be able to get every patch they made as a downlaodable executable (for network installs). If you can do that, you can burn them to cd and keep them for this type of problem long after MSs EOL on NT. A though - I did it for Win98, in case.

BTW, if you need the info off the NTFS drive available to NT, why don't you fire up SUSE and move the file from there to the vfat partition. Reading NTFS hasn't been a problem and writing to vfat is not a problem either.

Indeed. Fingers faster than brain .

I'll try that, thanks.

That's what I plan to do. But I want to drop Win as soon as possible anyhow.

Yes, that's what I meant to imply with my first post.

This is not so much of an unsurmountable problem, I just want to understand what is happening on my machine.

Probably one of those patches that cannot be reversed (Media Player 9 is one that comes to mind right away - install it and its yours! - kinda like some of the badly written proggies out there, like pre-version3 of ZoneAlarm)

Well, in the evening I had just some minutes time to install the 128-bit encryption package (of IExplorer 5.01). It did not do the trick ... what may then cause this behaviour? I really come to despise these installations which defy understanding .

You've got me scratching my head I haven't had trouble accessing NTFS (unless from '98, which has never happened) from XP, when I had it installed.

Much much later ... I found out. This thread shows the answer.

For those in a hurry, Windows need an entry in the registry to connect a drive letter with the appropriate partition.