asjuser

Thank you! I think I will try Mandrake 9.1 and use its disc 1 to see what happened, probably install MDK 9.1 as well if it doesn't have the CD-ROM issue. Thanks a lot.

Thank you for replying. Just some clarifications/questions. Forgive me, I know nil about Linux. I'm sorry, I don't understand what an extended partition is. And, when you say to stay away from the Windows disk manager, you mean don't mess with the Disk Management tool under XP? It's still safe to just use the HD under Windows, right? I mean, normally, without messing with partitions. Daily use. You know. -I don't know if Mandrake actually created a partition. All I know is that it resized my NTFS drive, and did -something- to the 10 gigs left over. If I boot from MDK CD1, then I should be able to see what happened, right? The only problem is that I don't want to do that. Even if there is a patch...I mean, I spent like 4 hours on the phone about tech support to get the CD drive replaced. I'm just...ah, I know it makes no logical sense, maybe, but MDK 9.2 just left a bad taste in my mouth. I'd rather do something where I know there's absolutely no risk, if you see what I mean. -Incidentally, are LG CD-RW/DVD drives affected by the bug? I have one that I suppose I could connect, but only if they 100% are definitely not affected. -Will another Linux distro CD recognize what Mandrake did? I'd like to install Linux (just not Mandrake...) but for now, I will stay with Windows and try Linux on one of my older, non-critical PCs. So...Do you know of any distro CDs I should try for this, and are they capable of 1. getting the partition table into a format XP can recognize and/or 2. formatting that partitioned off area into FAT32 (so XP recognizes it?)

Hello. I downloaded the 3 CDs of Mandrake 9.2, figuring I'd install it on my computer running Win XP Home. I have a 120 gig hard drive that was, at the time, in one big 120 gig NTFS partition. I booted the computer with the Mandrake install disc 1, got to the part about partitions, and told Mandrake to resize my partition so that there would be 10 gigs for Linux and everything else would be for Windows. Well, I did this, and then powered off my computer, because I was wanting to verify that my NTFS data was okay. Anyway, when I powered my computer back on, I got the dreaded dead LG-CD-ROM drive error (I know, I'm an idiot, I didn't even check to see if my CD-ROM was an affected model beforehand, apparently it was). Thus, my computer couldn't recognize that disc drive, it was dead. The computer still booted into Windows, though, and everything worked fine (except that the CD-drive was not recognized.) Anyway, fortunately I was able to call tech support and order a new drive, it's on its way now. In the meantime, I have totally abandoned Mandrake 9.2, there's no way I'm risking my hardware. My computer runs fine now. The only thing that bugs me is that 10 gigs (the 10 gigs I had siphoned off of the Windows partition) are missing from Windows' description of the hard drive, that is, in My Computer the HD shows up with a capacity of 10 gigs less than it actually has. Under computer management > disk management, Windows doesn't seem to recognize that there is (I assume) 10 gigs of unformatted space on the drive; although it lists the disk's capacity as 120 gigs, the Windows volume is less than that. Anyway, my question is: how do I get this space on the HD back? I don't want to stick Mandrake 9.2 back into my computer (I don't care about firmware updates. I just want to avoid messing with that as much as possible.) Why doesn't Windows detect that space left over after resizing the partition? Now, I do not believe that I told MDK 9.2 to create a new partition: I was messing with the dialog box and was confused as to whether to select 'Linux native' or 'ext3' or whatever, so I selected nothing. I want to know whether I can get that extra space back, or whether a full reinstall of Win XP will detect that space. Also, do you think that if I download Fedora Core 1 (which I'm currently looking at), it will recognize the extra 10 gigs and install itself there, or at least give me the option to format that extra space as FAT32 or something that Windows can recognize? Thank you.