[wplug] need help with partitions

[Wise, Jeremey]

I guess I need a better set of details to be able to help you out. What is
your end goal. I will assume that it is somewhat like the below:

/dev/hda1 ->primary partition Windows XP
/dev/hda2 ->primary partition /boot for Linux
/dev/hda3 ->primary partition /share partition formatted with FAT so files
can be shared between Linux and Windows
/dev/hda4 ->primary partition boundary to logical sub partitions
	/dev/hda5 ->extended partition for /
	/dev/hda6 ->extended partition for swap
	/dev/hda7 ->extended partition for /home

This is very similar to the portioning I use on my Laptop for dual booting
Linux / XP. It does seem you have some additional issues in that you have a
parameter conflict between what each OS sees as the logical parameters of
the drive (hence the physical vs. logical errors). I had this issue with an
older system which could not address 40GB drive and so I had to pass it some
kernel parameters to be able to address the drive right. This will effect
the system's boot loader ability to address any kernel / boot OS outside
(based on very old controller I had to deal with) 1024 cylinders. Grub is
your friend here as it is "file system aware" unlike Windows boot loader
which is purely a "chain loader". 

PS: Maybe someone can answer one question I have: Where did the /dev/hda3p1
dev type come from. My experiences has never had any /dev reference but
"hda#" not this "had#p#". It has been a while sense I messed with Slackware
but I don't remember this ever being a deviation of Slackware. Has someone
recreated the devices in /dev?


Jeremey Wise (440)-519-6006
(CNE,MCSE,CSE)
Pioneer-Standard Electronics, Inc
wisej at pios.com
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Alexandros Papadopoulos [mailto:apapadop at cmu.edu] 
Sent: Monday, March 03, 2003 12:14 AM
To: wplug at wplug.org
Subject: [wplug] need help with partitions

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Dear all.

Today I helped a friend install Red Hat 8.0 on his machine. Originally 
the machine had two partitions, with Windows XP's NTFS. We deleted the 
second partition, recognized as /dev/hda5 by the installer. In its 
place, we created /dev/hda5 (ext3fs-linux root), /dev/hda6 
(FAT-/mnt/windows), /dev/hda7 (ext3fs-/mnt/windows2), /dev/hda8 (swap).

After installing and rebooting in Linux wed notice that by mistake we 
formatted /dev/hda7 as ext3fs. No problems, I thought, so I just 
unmounted the partition and then ran mkfs.vfat /dev/hda7. It didn't 
complain, and then I updated /etc/fstab and mounted the partition, 
read/wrote to it fine, unmounted it, all was merry.

The we booted windows XP. The second FAT partition was not visible. We 
opened the disk manager and saw that it is visible but has not been 
assigned a drive letter. Only command available was to delete logical 
partition. So we delete it, and then try to re-create it. No go, the 
only options given to us was to create an NTFS partition! So we exit, 
and reboot.

We boot Windows XP again, this time both FAT partitions are gone and 
shown as free space! We recreate the first one as FAT, and then the 2nd 
one could only be recreated as NTFS, as before. We quit and boot Linux, 
only to find both windows partitions inaccessible, the swap partition 
destroyed, and only the original Windows XP partition /dev/hda1 and the 
linux root partition /dev/hda5 intact.

The output of fdisk -l /dev/hd* is attached.

How on Earth does one recover from a mess like that, and does anyone 
have any idea WHY did it break so badly?

Thanks for any suggestions

- -A
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