Linux partition visible to windows

[Lee Hanken]

I have one hard disk, containing Win98 and Linux; the partition layout
is as follows:

c: fat32 65Gb Primary hda1
* extended 35Gb Primary hda2
d: fat32 35Gb Logical hda5
/ linux-ext2 15Gb Primary hda4
swap linux-swap .7Gb Primary hda3

In Win98 drives f: - v: are virtual CD-Roms, drive z: is a DVD-Rom.

My problem is that drive E: appears to be visible to Win98. (On trying
to access E: command prompt says 'Not ready reading drive E:' instead
of 'Invalid drive specification') This leads to several complications
requiring work-arounds I won't go into here.

Is there a way of fixing the partition tables so that Win98 does not
detect e: (presumably the 15Gb linux partition) as existing?

PS: I hope this is an appropriate place to ask about disk partitions.
If there is somewhere better, please let me know.

 

[Arno Wagner]

I have one hard disk, containing Win98 and Linux; the partition layout
is as follows:

c: fat32 65Gb Primary hda1
* extended 35Gb Primary hda2
d: fat32 35Gb Logical hda5
/ linux-ext2 15Gb Primary hda4
swap linux-swap .7Gb Primary hda3

In Win98 drives f: - v: are virtual CD-Roms, drive z: is a DVD-Rom.

My problem is that drive E: appears to be visible to Win98. (On trying
to access E: command prompt says 'Not ready reading drive E:' instead
of 'Invalid drive specification') This leads to several complications
requiring work-arounds I won't go into here.

Is there a way of fixing the partition tables so that Win98 does not
detect e: (presumably the 15Gb linux partition) as existing?

Yes, make sure it has partition id "83". Windows ignores them from
my experience. But there is something wrong here: If you have logical
partitions, you can only have 3 primary partitions, not 4.

Can you post the output from 'fdisk -l /dev/hda'?

Additional note: you should not put any windowss-partitions behind
any linux partitions. From my experiences (long time ago), windows
does not see them at all.

PS: I hope this is an appropriate place to ask about disk partitions.
If there is somewhere better, please let me know.

This is appropriate. More MS competence here, but also other systems.

Arno

 

[Julian]

Yes, make sure it has partition id "83". Windows ignores them from
my experience. But there is something wrong here: If you have logical
partitions, you can only have 3 primary partitions, not 4.

Can you post the output from 'fdisk -l /dev/hda'?

Think Arno would like to see output of 'fdisk -p /dev/hda'

Additional note: you should not put any windowss-partitions behind
any linux partitions. From my experiences (long time ago), windows
does not see them at all.

A possible layout:

Pri FAT32, type 0C
"Pri" Extended, type 0F
Log Fat32, type 0C
Log swap, type 81(?)
Log ext2, type 83

Long ago, I saw mention of a Win bug which can trash data on that
logical FAT32, unless the very last partition on the disk is a FAT.
Don't recall where I saw that, but many multibooters in the forum
swore by it, and put a small, unused FAT at the end of the chain.
Merlin did it that way, too.

 

[Lee Hanken]

Can you post the output from 'fdisk -l /dev/hda'?

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 14946 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 8356 67119538+ c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda2 8357 12818 35841015 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda3 14859 14946 706860 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda4 12819 14858 16386268+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda5 8357 12818 35840983+ b Win95 FAT32

Partition table entries are not in disk order

 

[Svend Olaf Mikkelsen]

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 14946 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 8356 67119538+ c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda2 8357 12818 35841015 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda3 14859 14946 706860 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda4 12819 14858 16386268+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda5 8357 12818 35840983+ b Win95 FAT32

Partition table entries are not in disk order

I know you wrote that you have one disk, but can you confirm that you
have only one disk in the system?

The partition tables for /dev/hda looks normal. There could be a small
possibility that there is an invalid entry in the extended partition
table, but it is not likely. On the other hand there is always a cause
of a problem, so it may be possible. Also the end head entry for
/dev/hda1 could be wrong causing BIOS confusion. One way to check is
to do using Findpart for DOS or Windows from my page:

findpart tables fp.txt

and insert the text from the output file here.

If you have only one disk, the E: drive letter may be related to some
other device in the system.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 14946 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 8356 67119538+ c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda2 8357 12818 35841015 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda3 14859 14946 706860 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda4 12819 14858 16386268+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda5 8357 12818 35840983+ b Win95 FAT32

Partition table entries are not in disk order

O.K., that is a pretty strange layout. Since hda4 is a primary
partition, Windows sees it. With logical partitions, it stops
looking after the first non-MS partition. With this layout there
is likely nithing you can do.

A better layout would be like this:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 8356 67119538+ c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda2 8357 14946 ??????? f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 8357 12818 35840983+ b Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda6 12819 14858 16386268+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 14859 14946 706860 82 Linux swap

You might be able to get there, if the partitions where created by
linux fdisk. Thiw would be done by deleting hda2/3/4/5 and re-creating
them as above. If you are lucky all the data is still there.

Arno

 

[Arno Wagner]

Yes, make sure it has partition id "83". Windows ignores them from
my experience. But there is something wrong here: If you have logical
partitions, you can only have 3 primary partitions, not 4.

Can you post the output from 'fdisk -l /dev/hda'?

[/QUOTE]

Think Arno would like to see output of 'fdisk -p /dev/hda'

No such option in fdisk v2.12.

Arno

 

[Lee Hanken]

One way to check is

to do using Findpart for DOS or Windows from my page:

findpart tables fp.txt

and insert the text from the output file here.

Findpart, version 4.41 - for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.
Copyright Svend Olaf Mikkelsen, 1999-2004.

OS: Windows 4.10.2222 Partition tables:

Disk: 1 Cylinders: 14946 Heads: 255 Sectors: 63 MB: 117240

--PCyl N ID -----Rel -----Num ---MB --Start CHS- ---End CHS-- BS CHS
0 1*0C 63134239077 65546 0 1 1 8355*254 63 OK OK
0 2 0F134239140 71682030 35000 8356* 0 1 12817*254 63 OK
0 3 82238693770 1413720 690 14858# 0 1 14945*254 63 OK
0 4 83205921233 32772537 16002 12818* 1 1 14857*254 63 OK OK

8356 1 0B 63 71681967 35000 8356* 1 1 12817*254 63 R0 OK

 

[Svend Olaf Mikkelsen]

Findpart, version 4.41 - for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.
Copyright Svend Olaf Mikkelsen, 1999-2004.

OS: Windows 4.10.2222 Partition tables:

Disk: 1 Cylinders: 14946 Heads: 255 Sectors: 63 MB: 117240

--PCyl N ID -----Rel -----Num ---MB --Start CHS- ---End CHS-- BS CHS
0 1*0C 63134239077 65546 0 1 1 8355*254 63 OK OK
0 2 0F134239140 71682030 35000 8356* 0 1 12817*254 63 OK
0 3 82238693770 1413720 690 14858# 0 1 14945*254 63 OK
0 4 83205921233 32772537 16002 12818* 1 1 14857*254 63 OK OK

8356 1 0B 63 71681967 35000 8356* 1 1 12817*254 63 R0 OK

The problem seems not partition table related. The known "DOS/Windows
95/98/ME Partition Issues" are listed at

http://www.partitionsupport.com/partitionnotes.htm

It should be ruled out that it is the Windows 95/98/ME 32 GB problem.
You can do this:

findpart gb32

or

findpart gb32 fp-a.txt

If the 32 GB problem is present in Windows 98, data which should be
read and written more than 32 GB into the disk, are read and written
towards the beginning of the disk. If the problem is present, nothing
should be written to the disk, until the problem is further examined
and solved.

If the 32 GB problem is present, you cannot see the logical FAT32
partition in Linux since it would be at a wrong location, so if you
can see it, it should not be that.

 

[Svend Olaf Mikkelsen]

Findpart, version 4.41 - for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.
Copyright Svend Olaf Mikkelsen, 1999-2004.

OS: Windows 4.10.2222 Partition tables:

Disk: 1 Cylinders: 14946 Heads: 255 Sectors: 63 MB: 117240

--PCyl N ID -----Rel -----Num ---MB --Start CHS- ---End CHS-- BS CHS
0 1*0C 63134239077 65546 0 1 1 8355*254 63 OK OK
0 2 0F134239140 71682030 35000 8356* 0 1 12817*254 63 OK
0 3 82238693770 1413720 690 14858# 0 1 14945*254 63 OK
0 4 83205921233 32772537 16002 12818* 1 1 14857*254 63 OK OK

8356 1 0B 63 71681967 35000 8356* 1 1 12817*254 63 R0 OK

PS.

It can be added that if the 32 GB problem is present, the expected
location for the 35000 MB logical FAT32 partition is about cylinder
8356 mod 4096 = cylinder 164, about 1286 MB into the disk. Meaning
that in that case, the Linux partitions should be safe.