RE: Debian installation made D: unreadable.
On 01-Nov-97 Pierre Sarrazin wrote:
>Hi. I have installed Debian GNU/Linux 1.3.1 (from the Linux
>System Labs CD-ROM) and now the D: drive is unreadable by
>Windows 95...
>
<snip>
>
>In terms of DOS FDISK, the primary partition covers the
>first quarter. The extended partition covers the last
>_half_ of the disk, for "historical reasons"...
First, I'd use Linux fdisk, which knows all about DOS
and other partition types, while the reverse isn't true.
Second, I'd forget whatever history prompted the merging
of the last two partitions, and let the partitions
reflect reality. Also, although my ken of DOS is tiny,
I suspect that the 486 relevant patch is no longer (or
will no longer) be germane. And finally, I'd make the
DOS fdisk match the Linux fdisk (and reality).
>
>The end of Debian's quarter is the /usr filesystem.
>I had to format it manually with mke2fs by specifying
>explicitly the number of blocks. I used the number of
>blocks that Linux's fdisk displayed for /usr.
>
>The installation of Debian went well, but when I
>rebooted, DOS/Windows 95 could not read D: anymore
>(General failure reading drive D:).
>
>I went into DOS FDISK. This is the partition table that it
>displayed:
>
> Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage
> C: 1 A PRI DOS DISK1_VOL1 478 FAT16 25%
> 2 Non-DOS 478 25%
> 3 EXT DOS 937 49%
>
I suspect that this is your problem - what DOS thinks is D: is
currently occupied by Linux in the first half and the actual D:
in the second half.
>
> Total disk space is 1914 Mbytes (1 Mbyte = 1048576 bytes)
>
>
> The Extended DOS Partition contains Logical DOS Drives.
>
>
>This is the Logical DOS Drive Information that FDISK displayed:
>
> Drv Volume Label Mbytes System Usage
> D: 478 UNKNOWN 51%
>
>The UNKNOWN used to be FAT16. The volume label used to be
>DISK1_VOL1. I haven't lost much in that drive, but it would be
>less trouble if I could recover the contents.
>
>Is it possible that if I could change that UNKNOWN back to
>FAT16, D: would become readable again and its filesystem could
>be intact? If yes, then how can I force this change?
>
As I mentioned above, I know diddly about DOS, but I doubt that
this would work. I suspect that Linux occupies the space that
D: used to have (I could definately be wrong about this, though)
>If I reformat D: under DOS, could this corrupt Debian and/or
>its /usr filesystem?
>
Probably
>Can I use BIOS calls to try to read the tracks that correspond
>to drive D: to try to recover a few files (if the filesystem
>happens to be intact)? I suppose that would be Interrupt 13h,
>service 02h.
>
I hope someone else can address this, you're way beyond me here.
>--
>Pierre Sarrazin <ps@cam.org> [Montreal]
>
>
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-----------------------------------------
Ralph Winslow rjw@nac.net
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whose IQ is lowest divided by the number
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