Adding a new hard drive

[louis_b]

I recently added a new 40 GB hard drive, using the NHF "Adding a Hard drive in Linux. After physically installing the drive and booting into linux, and following the NHF instructions on finding out what the drive is called, I decided to create 2 physical partitions using fdisk. In this case, they are called hdc1 and hdc2. I then created the files systems: ext3 for hdc1 and vfat for hdc2 and then mounted the partitions in fstab after creating the appropriate mounting points. No problems whatsoever and tested each by copying some files to each.

I then rebooted into Windows. Windows did not recognize the second physical partition as FAT32. So, I thought with nothing to lose, I ran the DOS fdisk in a DOS window and re-partitioned the second partition and then formated the partition. Windows then said that I had to re-boot the computer (doesn't it always?) for the changes to take effect, which I did. Windows changed all the drive letters (except C:) for some reason -- I guess all of the physical partitions have to come before the extended partitions for some reason. No big deal, the FAT32 partition was ready for use. I then rebooted back into Linux and found that Linux recognized the partition and file system also.

The lesson I learned was that Linux should not be used for creating partitions or filesystems to be used in Windows.

[OdinsDream]

I may be mistaken, but isn't FAT32 completely different from VFAT?

I've created FAT partitions with fdisk in linux and Windows reads them happily. Perhaps you did not set the correct type? (t option, I think...)