Strange Partition Problem

[DwarfBaby]

I previously tri booted with WIN/ME, WIN 2k, and Suse 7.1 without even a remote problem. A month ago my Win Me hard drive crashed and burned. After installing a new hardrive I attempted to use fdisk like I did before to wipe out all partitions on the second hard drive reset them and reinstall linux. Ms/Dos can see the drive and the files that remain on it but fdisk can't see the drive. If someone can help me out I will be forever grateful.

[SUOrangeman]

Assuming all IDE interfaces, have you tried

fdisk /dev/hda
fdisk /dev/hdb
fdisk /dev/hdc
fdisk /dev/hdd

I'm guessing that primary/secondary, master/slave setting has changed.

If you have more IDE interfaces (say, 4 IDE ports on your motherboard or on a PCI card, try devices /dev/hde and above as well.

-SUO

[MS HelpDesk]

I know this might not help much. But we here at MS have a very simple answer to this. It tends to work with every problem we have come across.
1. Format
2. Reinstall

This fixes every windows problem, maybe it will help for a better OS such as linux.

[DwarfBaby]

OK I tried that and I receive an invalid switch - /dev error. If there is a better product besides fdisk let me know. The Slave HD prevoiusly contained NTFS Win 2k and a suse Linux partition. Both Hard Drives are IDE. The Primary contains the Horrible WIN/ME which works and the slave will have linux.

[DwarfBaby]

I tried formatting the drive to start with but I get a format not suppoted on drive d: Error. I don't why I get that error but I thought it was because of the win 2k partitions which is why I wanted to wipe them out. Also I plan to reinstall Win/2k on the main HD to replace Win/me would it matter if Linux was on the other drive. I boot from floppy into linux. THanks

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

SUO meant to use the linux version of fdisk. (I like the linux version better, anyways...)If you use Linux fdisk, you will have no problem deleting those partitions.

Did you check to see if the BIOS on your computer recognizes the new drive? I know that unless you tell some machines it's there, the machine won't see it.

After you use the Linux version of fdisk, then you might want to switch back over to MS-DOS fdisk if you're more comfortable with that program. It won't be able to do NTFS or Linux partitions, though...

I'd also recommend either Partition Magic of Partition Commander if you actually want to spen money on a partitioning tool.

[DwarfBaby]

Where can I find Linux fdisk.

[DwarfBaby]

I tried a different partitioning program for ms/dos and it worked fine. I'm still not sure why fdisk can't see the other drive but I guess it doesn't really matter anymore. Thanks for your help. :)

[bdg1983]

Are you saying you are trying to use the MS fdisk to see the 2nd drive that has Linux partitions on it? If so, then that won't work.

MS will not recognize Linux partitions though Bill must have them working on Linux support by now. Probably the next version of MS fdisk. ;)

If you want a partitioning tool that will work on most filesystems, try Gnu Parted available at freshmeat.net