Will this work or cause problems -> sym linking two partitions together

[trilarian]

Basically I have 4 hd on the system, the one relevant is a 60 gig. I want to make it readable and writable by both windows and linux, so I split it into two partitions and made the fs fat32. Fat32 address limits wouldn't allow for the full 60 in one partition. So I know I cant mount two partitions to the same directory and get one directory of 60 gigs. But can I mount them to two distinct directories then sym link one to the other? Will this give me the one directory of 60 gig effect or just make me write the same thing to two spots. If I'm going the wrong way is there a way to do this other than raid? Thanks.

[eyceguy]

where did you get your version of fdisk? ive been able to partition 80gb into one partition with fat32. so i dont see why a 60gb partition would complain otherwise

[trilarian]

The partition creating is fine, but mkfs.vfat returns an error that volume is too big. When I try disk management under windows I only have an option for ntfs with the partition at 60G.

[Kaligraphic]

I don't think you can, because you would be trying to mount two partitions to the same location. You wouldn't be able to know which partition would have the file. What you can do is this: you can create a directory for your entire disk, and have two subdirectories, one for each partition. Just mount each partition to its own directory.

[mrBen]

Originally posted by trilarian
The partition creating is fine, but mkfs.vfat returns an error that volume is too big. When I try disk management under windows I only have an option for ntfs with the partition at 60G.

Disk Management in Windows will default to NTFS on any partition >32Gb.

Fdisk can do it, but will not correctly recognise the size of drives >60Gb, but if you specify all partition sizes in % then you should be OK.

[chrism01]

You should be able to create the mounts, then create a symbolic link on mount num 1 as a pointer to the top of the 2nd mount, thus creating a "virtual" single disk.
Note the this only works for symbolic links, not hard links.

[trilarian]

Originally posted by chrism01
You should be able to create the mounts, then create a symbolic link on mount num 1 as a pointer to the top of the 2nd mount, thus creating a "virtual" single .
disk.
Not the this only works for symbolic links, not hard links.

Thats the idea I had in the begining, only I wasn't sure if I would just be writting files twice. Basically say /d1 and /d2 are mounted parititions then ln -s /d1 /d2. Then I could go in /d2 to also see /d1. I'll try when I get back home.

[chrism01]

Sorry, what i meant was create the link to d2 as a sub-dir on d1, otherwise you prob will have a problem... effectively attach d2 to the "end" of d1.
Hope that's clearer

[trilarian]

Ah....yea I have that setup right now. Actuallly I found a good use for it, I have a lot of video files and animations from 3ds max so I just put them all in there own partition. Thanks anyway.