Mandrake 10.2 on laptop - where is the XP?

[Guest jamesk9]

I installed Linux on my dell laptop, which had XP. There was only one

partition, and there was an option which said something like 'Use free space

on existing partition' which I selected.

Install went OK, but know I can't get to the XP partition, it boots straight to Linux.

How do I get to the XP, I have data ands software I need?

 

I thought it would ask on startup whether I wanted to boot from XP or Linux,

but it doesen't.

[Ixthusdan]

The install should have asked to place a boot loader on the mbr. Please post the contents of your /etc/fstab.

[Guest jamesk9]

The install should have asked to place a boot loader on the mbr. Please post the contents of your /etc/fstab.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I took the machine to a store to look at (could't post the contents). We found found some instructions to use fixmbr from the XP recovery. Tried that, but now it doesn't boot from the laptops hard drive. I booted with an external linux system, and took a loot at the fstab, there were 2 EXT and a swap - no NTFS.

 

Looking at the partitions with XP, there are 3 which it doesen't recognize. One is 70000 MB, others 6000 and 1000 Mb approx, the drive is 80 Gig. So does this mean that the NTFS XP stuff has been overwritten?

[ianw1974]

The partitions that XP can't recognise sound to me to be your 2 x EXT3 and Swap.

 

XP cannot read them.

 

What I have done in the past is that if I cannot get into both, install MDK again, and ensure that the LILO is installed in the MBR. You can also go into the configuration of this later towards the end of the install.

 

You can then add an entry called windows, and point it to /dev/hda1

 

This will then allow you to boot Windows and Linux.

[ianw1974]

Sorry, addition:

 

What did you do with the partitions before installing Linux? Did you have free space on the hard disk that Windows was installed on? Or did Windows utilise the whole hard disk?

 

Or did you use a program to resize Windows, to give free space?

[Ixthusdan]

Windows recovery methods generally give you windows, and only windows. I have never found someone at a store that knew anything about linux or data recovery!! :lol:

 

Here are the what ifs, some of which I could answer better with your fstab.

If you resized an ntfs partition with anything other than windows or Partition Magic, there is a high pobability of error. It's a windows thing. Windows stores data at both ends of the partition in order to play hardball. That data needs to be moved before resizing an ntfs partition. XP also does this with fat partitions. When resizing with windows, leave the empty area unformatted. That way, windows will leave it alone.

 

Get your self a self contained linux os, like Ubuntu or Mepis. This wll enable you to see the files of a windowized machine and get it booting correctly.

 

Additionally, machines sold by Dell, HP, Gateway, and others, have a little partition at the beginning of the primary drive that contains system ID and windows registration info. This little partition can play nasty with--- you guessed it, anything other than windows!! Nice game, isn't it? :lol:

 

I would at this point reinstall windows, but create two partitions, leaving one unformatted.

[Guest jamesk9]

Thanks for your input. It was a total loss on the data side, the Mandrake installation reformatted the entire 80Gig drive as 3 EXT partitions!

 

Couldn't get back to anything. Had to recreate 2 partitions. I created a 50 gig Windows and ret as Linux. I'll re-install Mandrake 10.2 and see how it goes.

 

I've been working on Unix boxes for years, but this was the first trial with Linux. I also tried Linespire (because it can be booted from the CD), which is OK.

[Guest szaka]

If you resized an ntfs partition with anything other than windows or Partition Magic, there is a high pobability of error.

The probability for the NTFS resizing part is exactly zero. We, Linux-NTFS developers, would have never released a widely needed and used tool that could destroy user data. Ntfsresize is especially extensively quality tested before each new releases, passing always all the several thousand different test cases successfully.

 

Scenarios when NTFS can be corrupted:

- power outage

- user turns off the computer during resizing

- hardware crash

- kernel crash

- hibernated partition is resized (this is not the common Windows "standby" mode)

 

The latest ntfsresize also detects hibernated partition and it refuses resizing however the problem still can occur with other filesystems.

 

All other problems I've met and debugged (quite many) over the last three years happened due to non-NTFS related issues and I discuss them and potential solutions in the Ntfsresize FAQ at http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntf...ml#troubleshoot

 

Interestingly, people sent several reports that Partition Magic trashed their NTFS meanwhile Linux partitioners worked fine, or in the rare, worst case, an incorrect partition table could be successfully recovered (caused by filesystem independent disk geometry detection problem in 2.6 kernels). Note, that ntfsresize has nothing to do with partition table modification (partition resizing) because that's a separate issue from filesystem resizing.

 

Why Mandrake 10.2 reformatted the NTFS partition as 3 Linux partitions? One possible explanation is also from the above FAQ:

 

Warning1: if DiskDrake can't unallocate enough space then it switches to destructive partitioning and gives the warning "After resizing partition X, all data on this partition will be lost". If you ignore this warning you will lose your Windows data. Partition Wizard in Mandrake 9.1 doesn't warn, it just goes ahead.

 

It's possible that NTFS was found to be inconsistent and thus resizing refused but the above warning was ignored (in this case user must repair NTFS what Windows damaged by running chkdsk /f).

 

It's a windows thing. Windows stores data at both ends of the partition in order to play hardball. That data needs to be moved before resizing an ntfs partition.

Ntfsresize moves around data safely, if needed. Please see details at http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntf...html#fragmented

[Ixthusdan]

From the details, "always make a test run" is good advice and would save a lot of headaches. While I personally have resized ntfs partitions, they are still the most problematic partitions to resize for the average user. And generally, average users should be the target.