Partitioning & Boot Selector

[Rewandythal]

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.

[Ghost_25inf]

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.

[Rewandythal]

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.

[proactive]

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).

[ac1dsp3ctrum]

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

[souleman]

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.

[cwk9]

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.

[Rewandythal]

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?

[ac1dsp3ctrum]

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

[Rewandythal]

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.