kartebi
asked on
Crazy Partitions
Something very strange is going on to my system.
I can't figure out what is going on with my partitions.
Here is a brief report of my system:
Two hard disks 8.4GB (Primary Master - (hda for Linux) ) , 4.3GB (Secondary Master - (hdc for Linux) )
and one cdrom (Primary Slave - (hdb for Linux) )
I have installed SuSE Linux 6.3 and Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition on my system
and i use Lilo to boot.
When i run Linux fdisk is shows the following partitions:
(For the hda)
Disk /dev/hda 255 Heads 63 Sectors 1027 Cylinders
One cylinder has 8225280 bytes
Device name From To Blocks Partition Type
/dev/hda1 1 638 5124703 5 Extended
/dev/hda3 639 830 1542240 83 Linux Native
/dev/hda4 831 1027 1582402 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda5 1 1 7969 83 Linux Native
/dev/hda6 2 621 4980118 83 Linux Native
/dev/hda7 622 638 136521 82 Linux Swap
(For the hdc)
Disk /dev/hdc 15 Heads 63 Sectors 8944 Cylinders
One cylinder has 483840 bytes
Device name From To Blocks Partition Type
/dev/hdc1 1 3251 1536066 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdc2 3252 8944 2689942 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
Note 1:
/dev/hda7 is mounted as swap
/dev/hda6 is mounted as /
/dev/hda5 is mounted as /boot
/dev/hda3 is mounted as /Programs (I created that partition for obvious reasons)
Note 2:
a) /dev/hda3 , /dev/hda4 , /dev/hdc1 , /dev/hdc2 are Primary partitions created by me.
b) /dev/hda1 , /dev/hda5 , /dev/hda6 , /dev/hda7 are partitions created by Linux during the installation
(I left for linux the first 5GB of empty space on hda when i had already created /dev/hda3 and /dev/hda4)
Note 3:
First i created the above partitions (a) , then i installed Linux and last i installed Windows98
When i run Windows98 fdisk it shows the following partitions:
Current fixed drive: 1 (Thats hdc for Linux)
Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage
C: 1 A PRI DOS WINDOWS98 1500 FAT32 36%
E: 2 PRI DOS GAMES 2627 FAT32 64%
Current fixed drive: 2 (Thats hda for Linux)
Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage
1 A EXT DOS 5005 62%
2 Non-DOS 1506 19%
D: 3 PRI DOS PROGRAMS 1545 FAT32 19%
It also says that : The Exdended DOS Partition contains Logical DOS Drives
Do you want to display the logical drive information (Y/N).....?[Y]
When i press "Yes" it says: No logical drives defined
The stange thing here is that Windows Explorer shows the following information about my system:
(I have labeled them according to their use)
WINDOWS98 (C:) (Capacity:1.569.845.248 bytes)
PROGRAMS (D:) (Capacity:1.515.872.256 bytes)
GAMES (E:) (Capacity:2.749.108.224 bytes)
(F:) (My CD)
DOWNLOADS (G:) (Capacity:2.749.108.224 bytes)
I want to say that my system runs smoothly (both Linux and Windows) and nothing shows any error.
The thing thats thats makes me wonder is:
Where does drive E: comes from and why drive E: and drive G: have the same capacity?
(I created the windows partitions in order to have :WINDOWS (C:) , PROGRAMS (D:)
and DOWNLOADS (E:).During the format i even labeled them that way.But when i loaded Windows
another drive showed up!(E:)! and the partition DOWNLOADS (D:) was made DOWNLOADS (G:)!
I formatted (E:) and i made a lot a checks but everything run normal , so i said "why waste 2.7GB?"
and i used it for games.)
I can't figure out what is going on so i would appreciate any help (even if you are not sure)
or any comments on this.
(forgive me for my bad english. I'm from Greece)
(My email is : kartebi@hotmail.com or kartebi@email.com or kartebi@linuxstart.com)
I can't figure out what is going on with my partitions.
Here is a brief report of my system:
Two hard disks 8.4GB (Primary Master - (hda for Linux) ) , 4.3GB (Secondary Master - (hdc for Linux) )
and one cdrom (Primary Slave - (hdb for Linux) )
I have installed SuSE Linux 6.3 and Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition on my system
and i use Lilo to boot.
When i run Linux fdisk is shows the following partitions:
(For the hda)
Disk /dev/hda 255 Heads 63 Sectors 1027 Cylinders
One cylinder has 8225280 bytes
Device name From To Blocks Partition Type
/dev/hda1 1 638 5124703 5 Extended
/dev/hda3 639 830 1542240 83 Linux Native
/dev/hda4 831 1027 1582402 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda5 1 1 7969 83 Linux Native
/dev/hda6 2 621 4980118 83 Linux Native
/dev/hda7 622 638 136521 82 Linux Swap
(For the hdc)
Disk /dev/hdc 15 Heads 63 Sectors 8944 Cylinders
One cylinder has 483840 bytes
Device name From To Blocks Partition Type
/dev/hdc1 1 3251 1536066 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdc2 3252 8944 2689942 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
Note 1:
/dev/hda7 is mounted as swap
/dev/hda6 is mounted as /
/dev/hda5 is mounted as /boot
/dev/hda3 is mounted as /Programs (I created that partition for obvious reasons)
Note 2:
a) /dev/hda3 , /dev/hda4 , /dev/hdc1 , /dev/hdc2 are Primary partitions created by me.
b) /dev/hda1 , /dev/hda5 , /dev/hda6 , /dev/hda7 are partitions created by Linux during the installation
(I left for linux the first 5GB of empty space on hda when i had already created /dev/hda3 and /dev/hda4)
Note 3:
First i created the above partitions (a) , then i installed Linux and last i installed Windows98
When i run Windows98 fdisk it shows the following partitions:
Current fixed drive: 1 (Thats hdc for Linux)
Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage
C: 1 A PRI DOS WINDOWS98 1500 FAT32 36%
E: 2 PRI DOS GAMES 2627 FAT32 64%
Current fixed drive: 2 (Thats hda for Linux)
Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage
1 A EXT DOS 5005 62%
2 Non-DOS 1506 19%
D: 3 PRI DOS PROGRAMS 1545 FAT32 19%
It also says that : The Exdended DOS Partition contains Logical DOS Drives
Do you want to display the logical drive information (Y/N).....?[Y]
When i press "Yes" it says: No logical drives defined
The stange thing here is that Windows Explorer shows the following information about my system:
(I have labeled them according to their use)
WINDOWS98 (C:) (Capacity:1.569.845.248 bytes)
PROGRAMS (D:) (Capacity:1.515.872.256 bytes)
GAMES (E:) (Capacity:2.749.108.224 bytes)
(F:) (My CD)
DOWNLOADS (G:) (Capacity:2.749.108.224 bytes)
I want to say that my system runs smoothly (both Linux and Windows) and nothing shows any error.
The thing thats thats makes me wonder is:
Where does drive E: comes from and why drive E: and drive G: have the same capacity?
(I created the windows partitions in order to have :WINDOWS (C:) , PROGRAMS (D:)
and DOWNLOADS (E:).During the format i even labeled them that way.But when i loaded Windows
another drive showed up!(E:)! and the partition DOWNLOADS (D:) was made DOWNLOADS (G:)!
I formatted (E:) and i made a lot a checks but everything run normal , so i said "why waste 2.7GB?"
and i used it for games.)
I can't figure out what is going on so i would appreciate any help (even if you are not sure)
or any comments on this.
(forgive me for my bad english. I'm from Greece)
(My email is : kartebi@hotmail.com or kartebi@email.com or kartebi@linuxstart.com)
Take my comment as an answer.
ASKER
After reading your answer i tryied to verify it , so i copied massive data to both of the disks and when the total amount of data into both disks reached 2.7GB the copy could not proceed.I can't figure out how these two drives are using the same partition but can be configured indepedently.(for example i format the one drive while the other contains 1GB of data and everything seems to be fine.The data is still there.)
How can this be happening and what can i do to solve this problem?
(I deleted the Linux partitions(hda1,hda5,hda6,
How can the Linux partitions be connected with this problem?
This is really weird!!!!
If you answer this one you are really good!
How can this be happening and what can i do to solve this problem?
(I deleted the Linux partitions(hda1,hda5,hda6,
How can the Linux partitions be connected with this problem?
This is really weird!!!!
If you answer this one you are really good!
One thing I may be afraid of is if this drive g: is writing to the linux partition. It has to be writing to some partition. Try adding a lastdrive=f statement in your config.sys
One thing I just noticed was /dev/hda1 1 638 5124703 5 Extended
I'm wondering if Win98 sees this partition as an extended fat partition. The only thing that may contradict this notion is that you stated you were able to write a full 2.7 GB of data to each partition (e & g). Another thing to check is typing the command 'subst' at a command prompt. This command is used to create a drive which points to another location, like a different drive or directory. But like you stated before, you were able to write to each partition without affecting the other.
I'm wondering if Win98 sees this partition as an extended fat partition. The only thing that may contradict this notion is that you stated you were able to write a full 2.7 GB of data to each partition (e & g). Another thing to check is typing the command 'subst' at a command prompt. This command is used to create a drive which points to another location, like a different drive or directory. But like you stated before, you were able to write to each partition without affecting the other.
ASKER
lastdrive=f didn't worked.It simply didn't showed drive g:
I also wan't to say that drive e: and g:
are writing to the same partition (hdc2)
"when the total amount of data into BOTH disks reached 2.7GB the copy could not proceed" I mean that when i added the ammount of data of e: and g: it was 2.7GB (e: and g: had also free space).Also the total amount of free space of e: and g: was also 2.7GB.
At that point i couldn't write anything to e: or to g: like as if they had no free space.
"(I created the windows partitions in order to have :WINDOWS (C:) , PROGRAMS (D:)
and DOWNLOADS (E:)"That means that c:=hdc1 d:=hda4 and e:=hdc2.
Within linux i wrote to hdc2 some data which data appeared to drive g:(in windows) that means that drive e: isn't supposed to be there.
What can i do?
I also wan't to say that drive e: and g:
are writing to the same partition (hdc2)
"when the total amount of data into BOTH disks reached 2.7GB the copy could not proceed" I mean that when i added the ammount of data of e: and g: it was 2.7GB (e: and g: had also free space).Also the total amount of free space of e: and g: was also 2.7GB.
At that point i couldn't write anything to e: or to g: like as if they had no free space.
"(I created the windows partitions in order to have :WINDOWS (C:) , PROGRAMS (D:)
and DOWNLOADS (E:)"That means that c:=hdc1 d:=hda4 and e:=hdc2.
Within linux i wrote to hdc2 some data which data appeared to drive g:(in windows) that means that drive e: isn't supposed to be there.
What can i do?
Have you tried deleting the 2 partitions? e: and g: ?
it looks like the partition table may be hosed.
Try running a partition program to delete your partition and re-create it. Try this link for a demo copy of partition magic. I don't know how well this program works.
http://www.powerquest.com/demos/Pm4win9x.exe
You could also try this program.
http://www.users.intercom.com/~ranish/part/partbeta.zip
That may fix the problem.
it looks like the partition table may be hosed.
Try running a partition program to delete your partition and re-create it. Try this link for a demo copy of partition magic. I don't know how well this program works.
http://www.powerquest.com/demos/Pm4win9x.exe
You could also try this program.
http://www.users.intercom.com/~ranish/part/partbeta.zip
That may fix the problem.
ASKER
Thanks but even partition magic could see drive e:!
But i managed to solve the problem myself!
When i deleted partition hdc2 both drive e: and g: disappeared.Then using windows fdisk i created an extented partition (hdc2) and a logical partition (hdc5) and it worked fine.
But i still can't figure out why two drives (e: and g:) where created using the same partition and why drive e: was a "fantom" drive.Windows fdisk not even linux fdisk could see this drive.Not even partition magic.
If you give me a logical explanation about how drive e: was created,using indepedently partition hdc,both with drive g: i would accept your answer with an excellent grade!
Should i reject your answer in order to unlock my question and allow other experts to comment on this?
But i managed to solve the problem myself!
When i deleted partition hdc2 both drive e: and g: disappeared.Then using windows fdisk i created an extented partition (hdc2) and a logical partition (hdc5) and it worked fine.
But i still can't figure out why two drives (e: and g:) where created using the same partition and why drive e: was a "fantom" drive.Windows fdisk not even linux fdisk could see this drive.Not even partition magic.
If you give me a logical explanation about how drive e: was created,using indepedently partition hdc,both with drive g: i would accept your answer with an excellent grade!
Should i reject your answer in order to unlock my question and allow other experts to comment on this?
I don't really care, I'll withdraw it myself. I don't know why it happened, but I suspect it is a windows problem.
ASKER
OK
Try looking out for an answer to this.
I really bust my head over this.
Please someone help!
Try looking out for an answer to this.
I really bust my head over this.
Please someone help!
It seems obvious that the partition never existed, but through the wisdom of Microsoft and all it's "features' and 'many, many bug", which are called features, that is the only program which got confused. Microsoft has many problems, and this could be one of them.
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ASKER
Yes but this is the first time i ever heard of such a problem!
Cause i'm getting really tired with this matter and noone else is making any comment ,i'll accept your answer.
But if you come up with any idea over this let me know please!
(email:kartebi@hotmail.com
OK?
Cause i'm getting really tired with this matter and noone else is making any comment ,i'll accept your answer.
But if you come up with any idea over this let me know please!
(email:kartebi@hotmail.com
OK?
ASKER
keep in touch
(For the hda)
Disk /dev/hda 255 Heads 63 Sectors 1027 Cylinders
One cylinder has 8225280 bytes
Device name From To Blocks Partition Type
/dev/hda1 1 638 5124703 5 Extended
/dev/hda3 639 830 1542240 83 Linux Native
/dev/hda4 831 1027 1582402 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda5 1 1 7969 83 Linux Native
/dev/hda6 2 621 4980118 83 Linux Native
/dev/hda7 622 638 136521 82 Linux Swap
(For the hdc)
Disk /dev/hdc 15 Heads 63 Sectors 8944 Cylinders
One cylinder has 483840 bytes
Device name From To Blocks Partition Type
/dev/hdc1 1 3251 1536066 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdc2 3252 8944 2689942 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
hda1 contains the following partitions, hda5, hda6, and hda7.
hda3 contains cylinders 639-830.
hda4 contains the rest of your drive, which equates to drive d: under windows.
hda4 contains 1,620,380,160 bytes
The linux partitions are taking a total of 6,826,982,400 bytes.
hdc1 equates to drive c: under windows, which contains 1,572,963,840 bytes.
hdc2 equates to drive e: under windows, which contains 2,754,017,280 bytes.
If you add the totals, this is the maximum total for your drives.
Even looking at the cylinders, you can tell it's all used up. Windows acts very wierd at times, and I'm thinking that your drives e: and g: are linked somehow, and I would advice not using g: That partition may become unreliable due because I think e: and g: are writing to the same partition.