partitioning problems...

[Counterstrike]

Well, here's my problem.

I have a dual boot Win98SE/Mandrake 7.1 System. My hard drives are:

Quantum FireballP 27.3GB (Win98) (Primary Master)
WD 20GB (Linux) (Primary Slave)
WD 40GB (MP3 Storage) (Secondary Master)

I want to redo my computer (I'm getting yet another hard drive) so I want to get Linux off the 20GB. The only problem is that after I boot with my Win98 CD, get to the C:\> prompt, and type fdisk, I get that question ("You have hard drives over 512MB yadda yadda yadda") so I answer yes and hit enter... then nothing. Then entire computer stops responding. So I booted with my MDK7.1 CD, got into the install, and it detects all the partitions just fine. I formatted the 20GB (using the Win98 FAT32, LBA-Mapped file system) and restarted into Win98. Now it says I have FOUR hard drives. My 2 that I know are right, then a 18GB and then one other one that doesn't have any space on it at all (there's a screenshot at the bottom of this post) ... so I try to reboot with the Win98 CD again, run fdisk, answer yes... and it stalls. This happens every time. Can anyone tell me what the hell is going on? All the drives are plugged into my Promise ATA/66 Add-On card... this is really starting to make me angry. Is there any hope?

http://www.geocities.com/bptbl/Image1.JPG

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/mad.gif



[This message has been edited by Counterstrike (edited 09 January 2001).]

[witman]

Do you have any disk manager software for your drives? My Fujitsu has adisk manager that has a stand alone OS that I can boot to. I can then reformat, Low level format or "zero fill" my drive. This works well in situations like you're describing.

Aside from a proprietary solution, I don't see anything else you could do except what you're doing. Maybe you should just keep hacking at it until you either screw it up so bad you need to LLF or fix it.

Have you tried fdisk since you did the Linux thing?

------------------
Use the source!
The WITMAN Cometh!

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by witman:
proprietary solution, I don't see anything else you could do except what you're doing.

he could try some other partitioning software

i really like ranish
http://www.users.intercom.com/~ranish/part/

[witman]

Originally posted by FoBoT:
he could try some other partitioning software

i really like ranish
http://www.users.intercom.com/~ranish/part/

Good call. That's sort of what I meant. Great link.


------------------
Use the source!
The WITMAN Cometh!

[Boi]

Yep, this I recognize. I recently made new partitions for win98 and SuSE Linux. First for win98 (OK), then for Linux (OK). When returning to Win98 however, my HD (if you believe fdisk) had found some hidden 2 GB, and was 110%.
Somehow win98 can't cope with Linux-partitions. The only solutions I could find was get a copy of win2000, instead of win98. It worked.
Good luck!

[Counterstrike]

Originally posted by FoBoT:
he could try some other partitioning software

i really like ranish
http://www.users.intercom.com/~ranish/part/

Thank you.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you.

Did I mention that I'd like to thank you!?

That program worked great, solved everything in about 5 seconds. THANKS!