Alan Shoemaker wrote:
> Hi all....I'm back to emailing on a Mandrake 6.1 system, and it
> sure feels good!! The problem is it's a new install and I was
> not able to recover any part of the old install's root
> partition. It appeared to be totally hosed.
>
> However I do believe that I've discovered a probable cause.
> When I originally set up for the installation I used PM4 to
> create the partitions. I created an extended partition with
> three linux partitions in it, two ext2 partitions and a linux
> swap partition.
>
> But on the subsequent fdisk scans (after the corruption of the
> partition table had occurred) I (finally) noticed that the
> extended partitiion was a type f, instead of the proper type 5.
> Type f is listed as 'Win95 Ext'd (LBA)', whereas a type 5 is
> listed simply as 'Extended'.
>
> Anyway, I suspect that having 3 linux partitions inside a Win95
> extended partition probably is what allowed my root partition to
> get corrupted (I figure it was totally overwritten somehow, but
> that's just a guess).
>
> So, thanks to those of you who tried to help.
>
> Alan
I do remember doing a Win98/linux dual boot install for a customer
(my first with win98) from a brand-new disk. I had the habit (with
w95 dual-boots) of using dos fdisk to set up the initial primary
dos partition, then an extended partition for the rest of the disk
with no logical drives. Disk Druid found this easy enough to work
with.
Then I did that one installation and DD was totally confused.
I ran fdisk (linux version) and it made several complaints about
the shape of the extended partition, so I deleted it and created it
again with linux fdisk. I have not left the safe world of FIPS and
fdisk since then. Leave it to Microsoft to invent their own
extended disk type just to be hostile to other op systems.
I have heard reports of 98 wiping linux partitions and I was
confused because on my dual boots I can't even use the 98 tools to
remove "logical drives" in the extended partition area though it
reports they are there and will not delete the extended partition
even if it is empty.
Now I understand better. Wow, what a cost to have GUI tools! And
a hidden one at that.
Civileme
