Partition confusion

[Michael Brown]

On Fri, 2003-11-07 at 08:37, Cyber Source wrote:
> I started getting a head ache reading this one, lol,

my confusion/frustration must have come out in the email

>  so I will give you a quick reply. Things you should probably do.
> 1. Keep it simple, if this is just a workstation, go with the default
> setup of the partitions.
> 2. Keep the windows side down to a small partition, it won't get
> fragmented as bad.
> 3. Try to loose the WinME if you can, if not, install that first, give
> it say a 5GB partition at most, with a dual boot, you can use the
> Linux side to store everything.

I am not in position to switch from WinME right now. I have heard many
people complain about it but I have had good (relative to windows) luck
until now. 

I setup 2 FAT32 partitions. A 5GB for windows and 15GB for files. I
would like to use Linux to store everything but how do I access Linux
partitions from within windows? I mainly need access to my photos. I do
most of my photo editing in windows.

> 4. After Windows installs properly and can start and reboot without
> problems, put in the Linux cd and boot.

this was done

> 5. Go with the auto partition from Linux and remove all previous Linux
> partitions.

this could be done....but I don't need to use all the free space. I
would like one large partition for backups/archives etc.


> 6. Install and enjoy.
> Problems that might arise....
> 1. The Linux installs that I do (RedHat) default to setting in LILO of
> "linear", if your using LILO for the boot loader that is. If you do
> not see the LILO screen after the Linux install, it has a problem with
> this line. You need to run the rescue mode from the Linux cd and mount
> your Linux install in rescue mode, change the line of "linear" to
> "lba32" in the file /etc/lilo.conf and then rerun lilo by typing
> "lilo" after you change the file. If it comes back ok, you should see
> your lilo screen on the reboot.

I can see the lilo menu fine. But if I select windows it does not boot.
It's as if the registry is missing.

> 2. If you are jumping around from different disks, you will need to
> (map) the drives in the /etc/lilo.conf file, with a statement like
> this,  
>         table=/dev/hdb
>         map-drive=0x80
>         to=0x82
>         map-drive=0x82
>         to=0x80
> adjust accordingly. Hope some of this helps ya.

I have a single drive and lilo.conf says:

boot=/dev/hde
map=/boot/map
vga=normal
default="linux"
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
disk=/dev/hde bios=0x80
image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label="linux"
	root=/dev/hde5
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="devfs=mount hda=ide-scsi acpi=ht splash=silent"
	vga=788
	read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label="linux-nonfb"
	root=/dev/hde5
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="devfs=mount hda=ide-scsi acpi=ht"
	read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
	label="failsafe"
	root=/dev/hde5
	initrd=/boot/initrd.img
	append="failsafe devfs=nomount hda=ide-scsi acpi=ht"
	read-only
other=/dev/hde1
	label="windows"
	table=/dev/hde
other=/dev/fd0
	label="floppy"
	unsafe

Seem Okay?
>  
> 
> 
> On Fri, 2003-11-07 at 00:02, Michael Brown wrote: 
> > Greetings All,
> > 
> > I recently installed a new 200GB hard drive in my PC. Previously, I had
> > 2 40GB drives. One partitioned for Windows ME and one partitioned for
> > Linux (Mandrake/Redhat, whatever the flavor of the week happened to be).
> > This dual boot system worked great.
> > 
> > The problem now is I can't seem to get the dual boot to work correctly
> > with a single hard drive.
> > 
> > I have tried several different ways to partition the new drive. I have
> > been able to install windows and get it setup fine. Then I setup Linux
> > and all goes well until I have to reboot into windows. Currently,
> > windows reports an registry error and does not boot not even in safe
> > mode. Previously, I booted to the startup disk and ran scanreg then it
> > reports several missing files and instructs me to reinstall windows.
> > 
> > I posted the output of fdisk /dev/hde below:
> > 
> >    Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
> > /dev/hde1   *         1       608   4883728+   c  Win95 FAT32 (LBA) C:
> > /dev/hde2           609      2432  14651280    c  Win95 FAT32 (LBA) D:
> > /dev/hde3          2433      7722  42491925   85  Linux extended
> > /dev/hde4          7723     24321 133331467+  83  Linux /archive
> > /dev/hde5          2433      2675   1951866   83  Linux /
> > /dev/hde6          2676      2736    489951   82  Linux swap
> > /dev/hde7          2737      3952   9767488+  83  Linux /usr
> > /dev/hde8          3953      5168   9767488+  83  Linux /var
> > /dev/hde9          5169      7600  19535008+  83  Linux /home
> > /dev/hde10         7601      7722    979933+  83  Linux /tmp
> > 
> > I did use cfdisk to setup this partition scheme. I also ran the command
> > dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda1 bs=512 count=1 on hde1 and hde2 per man
> > fdisk. cfdisk originally setup hde3 as type f (win95 ext'd) which caused
> > windows to "see" a third partition. But, I was able to boot back and
> > forth to Linux and windows until fsck complained of errors on hde4 and
> > they were too numerous to repair so I formated the partition again (it
> > was blank). Then windows could not boot.
> > 
> > Changing hde3 to type 85 (Linux extended) cured the ghost partition
> > under windows after reformatting C: again.
> > 
> > I should also note that during the current Mandrake 9.2 install lilo
> > found 2 windows installations. I did delete the windows2 option. But now
> > while Mandrake boots fine windows does not.
> > 
> > Is this a partitioning issue or perhaps do I need to switch the bootable
> > flag from hde1 to hde5?
> > 
> > I am hoping there is a simple solution without the need to repartition,
> > format, reinstall, etc. (again!) But, if I must, I will as long as I
> > know how to get it right this time.
> > 
> > Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
> > 
> > Michael Brown
-- 
Michael Brown <mwkbrown at alltel.net>