FAT32 Extended Partition Problem

[Juan M. Baratti]

I install a dual boot configuration with Windows 98SE and XP.
Hard Disk 60GB partitioned as follows:

1) (WIN98) PRIMARY FAT32 15 GB (Active)
2) (XP_PRO) PRIMARY NTFS 21 GB
3) (DATA) EXTENDED FAT32 21 GB

I have a problem with the extended partition.
It seems like W98 doesn't recognize it.
It shows the drive letter but popup a message saying that
the drive is not formatted when I try to open the disk.

On the other hand, when I use XP the extended partition works
pretty good.

I use partition magic and the situation changes as follows:
If I delete the partition with partition magic, and then recreate it
with fdisk and format, W98 works OK but partition magic shows the
space of the extended partition as unallocated.
In XP it seem like the extended partition works good. It shows the
correct partition
data in the disk managment (control panel) and in partition magic.
But when I open the drive I can't see the data copied in W98.
It seem that I have 2 different disks working in the same partition.
I don't know, I'm lost

Does anyone could tell what happend with that ??
Is there any incompatibility with the file system between W98 and XP ?
Or what I'm doing wrong.

TIA.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Juan.

I don't have the full answer, but maybe a couple of comments will help.

First, as you probably know, Win9x/ME cannot even SEE an NTFS partition.
Therefore, while your Win98 and WinXP probably agree as to which is Drive
C:, they most likely do not agree as to which drive letter should apply to
your extended partition, which comes after the NTFS partition.

Second, an extended partition does not receive a drive letter and cannot be
formatted. I assume you have created at least a single logical drive within
the extended partition; that logical drive is what you mean when you say the
(DATA) partition.

I'm not sure how Partition Magic deals with your particular configuration.
Do you have the newest version of PM? Earlier versions could not handle
WinXP properly; I think you need at least 7.0, maybe 8.0.

Many of us (including myself) have dual-booted Win9x/ME with WinNT/2K/XP,
and with mixed FAT/FAT32/NTFS volumes, so we know it can be done. But it
might take some extra tweaking of drive letters when you have a FAT32 volume
AFTER an NTFS volume. You will need to use Disk Management in WinXP and
Device Manager in Win98 to specifically assign drive letters, rather than
let the different Windows use their own different algorithms to make the
assignments. Why not assign that Data volume as Drive X: (for example) in
Win98, using Device Manager, then assign it Drive X: in WinXP, using Drive
Management. Then it would always be Drive X:, no matter which OS you are
booting.

RC

 

[Alex Nichol]

I don't have the full answer, but maybe a couple of comments will help.

First, as you probably know, Win9x/ME cannot even SEE an NTFS partition.
Therefore, while your Win98 and WinXP probably agree as to which is Drive
C:, they most likely do not agree as to which drive letter should apply to
your extended partition, which comes after the NTFS partition.

I think you have hit it. What is probably being seen from XP is

C: - the one with Win98 on it
D: - the one with XP on it
E: - the logical drive in the Extended partition)

Though these letters are not certain, and would need checking

What Win98 will see is
C: - the Win98
D: - the logical in the extended
and the XP partition not at all