Re: Windows multiboot (aaargh!)
Pigeon wrote:
[snip]
Conclusion: DOS can't cope with the presence of non-DOS extended
partitions. How dead and chewed.
So it seems that the options are something like:
- don't have a Linux partition on that drive at all
- don't have your second DOS partition, so there can be room for the
ext2 partition to be a primary partition
- have two extended partitions, both DOS, and use umsdos in one of them
It also seems I'd misremembered how the drive letters get allocated;
as you found out, the bootable primary partition is C:, the extended
DOS partition(s) come next and after them the other primary DOS
partitions.
[snip]
If you don't have to use the same disk for DOS and Linux, I second the
first point. Once upon a time I had win98 on hda1(first primary
partition), a second FAT32 on hda2 (second primary) and / on hda3 (third
primary). The FAT32 partitions were made with the windows FDISK from the
98 install CD. The ext2 / (this was a while ago) was made with Linux
fdisk. One day while installing a popular windows game (which is why I
have the OS) onto the second FAT32 partition and it crashed in the
middle of the install. Oh well I thought. Stupid MS, I'll go play
FreeCiv in Linux, but Linux wouldn't boot. Booting from a rescue disk I
found that hda3's contents were garbage. *#@$@*!!
Oh well. I had two disks anyway and /usr/local and /home were on the
second hard disk. I really wasn't using /usr/local with
built-from-source programs, so it became /.
A few years later although I should have learned my lesson, my little
XPC only has room for one 3.5" harddisk. I throw windows and linux on
there and end up pulling out my hair twice when twice after a crash in
NWN, my first ext3 linux partition in the system is toasted. Oh well,
this time I had a few distro's with root partitions. Re-installing
wasn't the end of the world and it hasn't happened since (crosses
fingers, then typos), but my advice to everyone else is be safe and keep
Linux partitions away from Windows. Maybe also keep Windows partitions
safe from Linux, because when I re-installed Debian onto that partition,
both times I lost the data in another FAT32 partion.
In fact, you can use DOS FDISK as well... why is it that I've been
tweaking bootable flags for years and never tried using DOS FDISK
until tonight? Seems to work OK. Brain the size of a peanut strikes
again.
[snip]
Does that mean if you use DOS FDISK for all the operations in your
testing that you were able to get Linux on the extended partition, or
did it still not work?
Here's my layout:
xpc-debian:~# fdisk -l /dev/hda
Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 523 4200966 b Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda2 524 1021 4000185 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda3 1022 1519 4000185 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 1520 9729 65946825 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 1520 1768 2000061 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda6 1769 2266 4000153+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 2267 2764 4000153+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda8 2765 3262 4000153+ b Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda9 7240 8484 10000431 83 Linux
/dev/hda10 8485 9729 10000431 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
cfdisk 2.11z
Disk Drive: /dev/hda
Size: 80026361856 bytes, 80.0 GB
Heads: 255 Sectors per Track: 63 Cylinders: 9729
Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label]
Size (MB)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hda1 Boot Primary Win95 FAT32
4301.83
hda2 Primary NTFS
4096.19
hda3 Primary Linux ext3
4096.19
hda5 Logical Linux swap
2048.10
hda6 Logical Linux ext3
4096.19
hda7 Logical Linux ext3 [/home]
4096.19
hda8 Logical Win95 FAT32
4096.19
Logical Free Space
32711.94
hda9 Logical Linux
10240.48
hda10 Logical Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
10240.48
hda3 and hda8 kept taking turns getting wiped out by Neverwinter crashes
and Debian installs. I don't even remember how I set all the partitions
up, it wasn't nearly as complex as you described so I probably did
something wrong. I think the last thing I did was re-install then have
W2k format hda8 before installing NWN into that partion for the third time.
Right now hda3 is Sid and hda6 is Sarge. The first time hda3 was Gentoo,
so it wasn't a great loss. I was going to switch it to Sid anyway.
Jacob
Reply to: