iphitus Posted April 16, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 16, 2003 oh and the Mandrake installer showed the loast area as White. Empty. Do i need to format it or anything before running any tools to mark bad sectors? I can't see the partition in winblows, and i have NOT used any Microshaft disk tools. How do i go about markin bad sectors and then installin Linux back where it used to be? Thanks for all help so far James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted April 17, 2003 Report Share Posted April 17, 2003 There are different ways to do this. Given what you have, I would: 1) boot windiggers and format the empty part of the drive, fat or fat32, not ntfs. 2) run scandisk thorough on the entire drive, both partitions. You will have to run each partition seperately. Set it on auto repair, and let it do its thing. 3) After it is done, load linux and use its own disk tool to set up the linux partitions. I like to use reiserfs. 4) install and enjoy! Remember, this will obliterate any potential data recovery in the linux partition, but it sounds like the partition is lost anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted April 17, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 17, 2003 In fdisk what do i do? Multiple choice question for full marks 1. Create Primary DOS Partition (ok probably not this one) 2. Create Extended DOS Partition 3. Create Logical DOS Drive(s) in the Extended DOS Partition 1, 2 or 3. Which option do i choose? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted April 17, 2003 Report Share Posted April 17, 2003 First, choose option #5 (I think). It tells you the current status of the drive: partitions and unallocated space. Do #2, create an extended dos partition. When offered, use the rest of the drive for this partition. You should then be able to boot into windows and format the new partition. After that, scandisc. Disclaimer: I have hosed my system so much, I can rebuild it from memory!! What you choose to do to your computer is your choice. If you have any fear, the computer will sense it. :lol: Seriously, back up your data, create a mirror image of your windows partition, because stuff goes wrong when it logically shouldn't. There is a possibility that fdisk will not identify the rest of your drive properly because of the previous linux installation. I am hoping that the error your getting is enough for fdisk to still see the rest of the drive. If you want, get the info from fdisk about how the drive currently looks, and post back here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted April 18, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 18, 2003 Thanks, Yep i think it detected where Linux used to be I only reformatted and installed linux/win95 about a week ago so there is nothing that con't be transferred in a single floppy. Thanks a heap, James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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