Partitioning & Boot Selector

Can anyone recommend a free partition tool (like FDISK only one that actually works!!!) which allows me to see a full 8.4GB hard drive, not just 520MB of it, and which allows me to delete seemingly random partitions that have appeared so that I can put a single NTFS partition onto the HDD (it used to contain 2 EXT2 and a Linux Swap)...

Also, I need a boot manager/OS selector that allows you to boot Windows 98 and 2000, and Linux, and allows you to set a password. I could use a BIOS password, but I figured a boot manager password is safer, all I have to do if I forget it is put the drive in another machine and rewrite the MBR.

I dont think the HD size is a resault of the partion It sounds like your Bios is too old to reconize the size of your HD reboot system and go into your bios and see if you can manually type in the size of the HD. Anyways windows 2000 comes with a great partioning tool havent had a problem yet with it.

I'll explain.
The BIOS sees the full 8.4, I checked, and I had linux using the full 8.4 before.
The Windows 2000 partition tool is great, and has always worked, but when it comes to booting it up it seems not to work.

Free partitioning tool: FIPS. I've used this with success once, it came with Red Hat 6.0 but you will find it on the net also. It's difficult to use, but so are all the partitioning tools I've tried(except partition magic).

fdisk should work, I have a 20 gig and a 10 gig... fdisk recognixes both, when you start fdisk there should be an option that asks you if you want to enable NTFS (if you use Win2k) and Large Disk Access, say yes to any of those menus.... I dont see any reason it doesnt detect it unless you use Windows95 ;)

I always used fdisk for partioning (unless I wanted non-destructive partioning). Also, the Windows2k boot manager, and Grub, and Lilo, should all work as a boot managers.

What’s wrong with fdisk I don't think I’ve ever seen fdisk not work for any reason. I guess you could try partition magic or FIPS but I have a hunch that you problem is not caused by the partition program its self.

I've tried 5 different partitioning programs now, so I'm convinved its not a partitioning problem per se (not a problem with the software, but maybe a partitioning problem of some other description).

Any ideas?

Corrupted hard drive?
Try doing a scandisk and a defrag... If that doesnt work you might have to reformat, run fdisk with a clean hard drive do what you need to do and reinstall an OS

The point is, I now have no OS on the disk (well, i can install 2000 onto it, and the 2000 partitioning software sees the full 8.4GB, but when it reboots during setup, it says assorted error messages, the general thread common to them being "disk error".
Even though I know the disk works cos Windows just formatted & installed itself (partly) onto it.

What did you mean by "seemingly random partitions"?...

As far as the incomplete installations, as acidspectrum said, you may have a damaged HDD, although any windows OS is supposed to scan the drive BEFORE it attempts installation, so it shouldn't even let you start to do it. (That's how W98se operates, anyway). If the error message that you recieve says, "non system disk or disk error" you may be looking at a bad HDD or a dead BIOS...or maybe just a loose signal connection...
Anyways...keep puttering around with it and see what you can figure out, one OS at a time...

Ouroboros

The thing is... I can install Linux Mandrake 7.1 on it no problem!
But anything else fails miserably when it comes to rebooting during or after setup!

You might want to start all over again, wipe out the HD, set up the partitions, then install linux and use Grub as your loader. . .

I can do that, but I want to put 2000 on it for a while to test out something...
I guess I'll just have to leave it as it is.
Can GRUB (or even LILO) boot NTFS partitions (Win2K)?
Last time I tried it kept *****ing up my Windows installation cos it wouldn't boot an NTFS partition properly...

you could have a boot virus which has corrupted your MBR...or you just have a corrupted MBR...this could cause these symptoms



check out recovery console commands...

http://www.win2000mag.com/Articles/I...leID=8957&pg=2

fixboot. The Fixboot command can save you from disasters such as inadvertently installing NT or Windows 9x after you've installed Win2K Pro—in which case you can't boot Win2K Pro. Fixboot writes a new boot sector that makes the drive bootable and takes one argument—the drive letter to run on. For example,

fixboot c:
writes a new boot sector on the C drive.

Fixmbr. The Fixmbr command attempts to fix the boot partition's Master Boot Record (MBR) and might help you resolve the problem when the system refuses to boot. The command takes one argument—the name of the device that needs a new MBR. If you leave the name blank, Fixmbr will write the new MBR to the default boot device (usually your C drive).

Use a low-level utility like norton diskedit
or debug.exe to completely zero out the
Master Boot Record.

After that, it will be a virgin hard drive again.
Install the OS of your choice
:cool:

Yeah. . . grub doesn't have problems w/ NTFS, as far as I know, you might just be having problems b/c your tryin' to install windows after you've got Linux on the box. Windows OS's are picky, they always wanna be first, territorial pissings, they gotta leak all over the MBR. Linux is real easy going though, works well around a windows install and it'll set up grub w/ no problems if you've already got the NTFS partition in place.

I've had Linux and Windows 9x working well on the same machine, and I've also managwed a triple boot with Linux, 98 AND 2000... But only because LILO/GRUB boot the 9x partition, which is FAT32, and the NT Boot Loader takes over from there. So the LILO entries are Linux and Windows, and the NT Boot Loader then takes over and allows you to select Windows 98 and Windows 2000 Professional.

That is the only way I've managed to get Linux to coexist with 2k.

Your reboot problem almost sounds like you are not installing Windows on the first primary partition. You can have 4 primary partions, but only 1 active primary partion. Either you are putting Windows on the wrong partion, or you have have a different partion set as active. Maybe not, but its a thought.

If I had a partition program that would see the full drive (FDISK only gives me 520MB of it) and that has advanced options like setting active partitions (enither 2000s or Linux Mandrake's in-setup partitioner allow that, as far as I know) I'd be able to try that, unfortunately I don't. I'm trying to acquire a copy of Partition Magic in the hope that I'll be able to do something useful with it.

Say no to enable large disk support.

It doesn't even ASK me if I wanna enable large disk support.
What would be the point of not enabling it, that'd only see 2GB of it anyway, I need access to the full 8.4GB?

Quote:

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Can GRUB (or even LILO) boot NTFS partitions (Win2K)?

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Yes. GRUB can boot just about anything. All hail GRUB! You might want to check that you have NTFS support enabled too. This shouldn't be a problem for reading from the NT partition but it still could cause other problems.

Here's a link you might want to read on NTFS Support.

You also might want to check the following:

1. Has a virus infected your MBR?
2. Does your HD have errors?
3. Are you using a SCSI drive?
4. Are you installing Win2k first First?

Here's a good article on multibooting different OS's.

Hope this helps :).

Quote:

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Originally posted here by Rewandythal
It doesn't even ASK me if I wanna enable large disk support.
What would be the point of not enabling it, that'd only see 2GB of it anyway, I need access to the full 8.4GB?

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If you delete all partitions using fdisk, then restart and run fdisk again(considering that this is a Win boot disk, if it is), it should ask you if you want to enable 'large disk support'...how are you booting the system after erasing all partitions? I don't know how Linux handles it, but Win basically begs you to enable it...
In W98 boots, the primary partition is DOS(kinda)...

In short...how are you rebooting after format and deletion of partitions?...boot disk? Changing boot order in the BIOS? What OS?

Ouroboros

I don't know if this is true of the latest versions,
but I have encountered situations where the
Windows, or MS-DOS version of FDISK is in-
capable of deleting partitions created by
the LINUX version of FDISK.

Windows FDISK can tell that there is a
"non dos partition", but refuses to
delete it, and will only work with the
FAT partitions already defined.

The solution is to either create your (FAT or NTFS)
partitions with Linux FDISK, or , better,
delete all partitions with LINUX FDISK,
and then Windows FDISK will see the
whole drive.

If all else fails, there should be some
way to nuke the master boot sector
entirely (norton utilities)
:cool:

What about trying ranish partition manager? http://come.to/ranish. Or maybe using the linux fdisk off the CD?
Cheers,
cgkanchi

Right, to clear a few things up:
[1] I do not have a virus, I know that for a FACT
[2] I have had Linux installed with no problems previously
[3] I have got rid of linux completely (temporarily - I can't last long without it) in order to install 2K to test something out.
[4] I've tried Linux FDISK to delete the lot but it still doesn't let Dos FDISK see the full drive
[5] I'm not trying to dualboot
[6] 2000's partitioner sees the full 8.4 and will partition it, but when it reboots part way thfu setup it fails with a Disk Read Error.
[7] I've tried Ranish Partition Manager... that only sees 520MB as well.
[8] Anything else I forgot to mention.

So anyone have any other suggestions for getting 2K on the machine, otherwise I'll jus reinstall Mandrake 7.1 and forget about it til I get another base unit I can use for testing it out on.

http://www.xosl.org/ - a good boot loader with the features you want
http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/dlgmaker.exe - a diagnostic tool to check the integrity of your hard drive.

Windows is much more touchy about bad clusters when it installs than linux is. I have seen linux run on a drive that had half of its clusters be marked bad by a scandisk utility. windows didn't even come close to starting its install, and linux installed, booted, and was running circles around the windows deamon.... ummmmmmm. Well you get the idea. :D

I hope you get our box up.

There's nothing physically wrong with the HDD, as far as I know... It was brand new 2 months ago, it's had Linux on since then (although I did have Windows 98 on it for 2 days at the beginning whilst I downloaded some patches for my Win2k install on another machine (I had to download a modem driver, so the 2K machine could get on the net to download the rest itself, and I only have Winmodems, so i had to go from a Windows box.)

Amost sounds like wrong parameters in the BIOS.
I've seen drives with the wrong physical parameters
entered into the BIOS able to (apparently) format
normally but have errors when you try to access
beyond a certain capacity.

But I assume you've been using the drive in this
machine without a problem, using Linux.
Well Linux only uses the BIOS to boot the kernel,
so maybe it could use the drive without trouble
even if it is mis-identified in the BIOS.

You could also play with any settings concerning
LBA, ultra-DMA, etc. It's gotta be something simple
but overlooked.
:cool:

The BIOS can see the full 8.4 and Linux can use the full 8.4 (I checked).