Re: Can Windows95 cause error on my Linux Drive.
On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Person, Roderick wrote:
> Hey All,
>
> Recently, I added a new drive to my system as the slave 2nd drive.
> Therefore, I made my old drive a Win95 drive so the family could play games
> and such. Now it seems that everytime I log into my Linux drive (/dev/hdb) I
> get file system not unmount correctly errors. I fsck and get it in operating
> conditions and a day or two later i get the same errors. Could this be due
> to how other users are logging out of win95 or not logging out and just
> shuting off the machine? Drive 1 is totally win95(1.2GB) drive 2 is 5GB for
> Linux in 4 partitions and 1GB for win in one partition. Anyone having this
> problem.
Hmmm. So far as I know, just booting Windows (or even powering
it down) shouldn't be able to muck up a Linux partition. I can only think
of two ways this could happen. First, Windows doesn't agree with Linux
about where the partitions are and is overwriting things. In this case,
though, you'd probably have a horrible time recovering the filesystem, and
it sounds like fsck is doing the job for you so far. Second, someone might
be using a Windows tool to access the Linux partition and that utility is
buggy. I've never used it but I hear there is some sort of tool that'll
let you do that.
On the other hand, how do you boot Linux on this machine? Is there a boot
menu (like LILO) or do you use a boot floppy? At home, my system boots
Linux by default, and only boots Windows if someone specifically asks.
Fortunately, my wife knows how to use Linux, at least for web surfing, and
knows not to just power off Linux. I don't have a lot of authority in our
house, but she trusts me about the computer. :-> She only made that
mistake once, and I got just the symptoms you describe.
If it's possible for your family to accidentally boot Linux, they might
say, "Oh, shucks" and power off and on again for a second try at
Windows... thus hosing Linux. Make sure they know the consequences of
this.
If it's still too hard for them to understand, you can set things up to
always boot Windows, and use a boot floppy to boot Linux. It's less
convenient for you, but *very* hard for your family to make a mistake
(unless you leave the floppy in the drive). If you do this, make sure you
have at least one backup boot floppy in case the main one goes bad.
Sincerely,
Ray Ingles (248)377-7735 ray.ingles@fanucrobotics.com
Modern inductive method: 1) Devise hypothesis. 2) Apply for grant.
3) Perform experiments. 4) Revise data to fit hypothesis. 5) Publish.
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