Re: [newbie] HELP! Linux stole my windows partition!!! (Thank Yous)

[John I. Azeke]

First of all (IN DEFENSE OF MYSELF): I would just like to say that I am new to the world of Linux.  I haven't even heard the word until I started college 4 years ago.  This is now my second month of actually using the OS.  I am moving over from Windows because I am sick of being ripped off for something that is garbage.  I read a lot before deciding to try Linux and I read the so-called "Installation and User's Guide" that only shows how to do an automatic install, and other installation run-throughs I found on the web.   Thus said, I AM A NEWBIE.  I signed up to this list to get some help and make this transition a little easier.  I read as much about new commands and programs I use before trying them out.  I did not see anywhere in any other sort of report a section titled "What To Do If the Partition You Were Looking at Under Linux Is No Longer Recognized by Windows".  Thus, I wrote my situation to you all to see if there were any expert advise.  I did get some very good advise from those at the bottom of this letter, but I did also get a lot of criticism for not knowing in advance the answers to my questions.  Really, if I was at that level, I would no longer be a member of this mailing list, would I?   Bottom Line: Scandisk was not aware of the missing partition, so it could not fix it. DOS fdisk recognized the partition as NON-DOS cfdisk recognized the partition as WIN 95 FAT32 Norton SystemWorks also could not fix it, although it did see it as a "root partition"   Again: I have 2 hard drives.  One has 2 Windows partitions.  The other has Linux Mandrake installed.  They are completely seperate.  Ther is no way my installation could have been at fault because windows worrked fine after installation.  This happened weeks later.  I think that Doug McGarrett was right and somehow the supermount option was to blame.  I upgraded my install without this option, copied the buggy partition to Linux, reformated using DOS fdisk and dumped everything back in.  It worked and no information was lost.   I would really like to thank the following people for giving me genuine support on finding a solution:   1) Mark Weaver 2) Doug McGarrett 3) Goldenpi 4) Paul 5) Ed Tharp   Your help was greatly appreciated.   J. Azeke