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Dual boot partitioning troubles

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by dlcox2

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I have a dual boot PC with Redhat linux 6.2 and windows 98se. The two OS's are running quite well.
Facts:
I have 1 20 GB hd, and 1 8gb hd.

The 20 gb is partitioned 6gb (the active partition) and 13 gb both with fat32.

The 8 gb has 2 partitions, one 4gb Linux EXT2 and one 4 gb fat32.

Complicated already?! Here's my question.

The 4gb linux partition is somehow visible to the win98 OS but as an "unformatted drive". I wanted to hide that partition from windows, so I called up Partition Magic 5.0 and I get "Partition table error 114" and referred to it as "BAD" when I select that HD. The only options available are to format or quit.

Any idea as to the issues here? What does the error 114 specifically refer to? Perhaps I should try another partitioning software (i.e. fips?) Any help would be gladly received.
Thanks,
Dave

12 replies

by geroxx

Are you using LILO with your LINUX? I thought this was susposed to help you dual boot Linux and Other OS's.

Gary

by dlcox2

Gary, Yes I use Lilo. The two OS's
work beautifully. My trouble is simply
that in windows I see a drive wich I'd
rather not see. It shows up as drive e:
but windows wants to format it. I want
to hide it's existance from windows.

by pschuvie

Well looks like the above answer with the link to PowerQuest site is just where I was headed to recommend then got side tracked.

Just an additional note that I have had pretty good luck with sending requests to and getting positive and helpful feedback from Powerquest. They seem to recognize that data is important and rather urgent to most users. .

I would suggest that you send the body of this question along with some of the additional notes to them and get the answer direct. There software often has things that can be done that doesn't always get on the web site, ie. switches etc. You've explained pretty well what the problem is and what your end result desires are so I would give them a try, and certainly before going through any complications of another product being added to the confusion.

I think in the back of my mind it has to do with the Linux partition preparation and the Linux loader, but cannot give you a specific understanding, which they would.

Good Luck - and let us know just what it was that worked :)

by eugen prokopiev

Ok, my first advice is to use fdisk under Linux - it provides more control over partitioning.

To hide Linux partition from Win98 you simply need to set type of Linux partition to "Linux Native" (0x83) by using command "t" in fdisk.

That's all :)

by sir emi

Hi there !

I've understand that you're system is working fine. So my best advise is to "do nothing" & enjoy it ;-)

However, if you're bothered that much about that partition you can use this:
Windows doesn't know how to handle more than one primary partition (on one HDD). So delete all the partitions from the second HDD (8gb) and than create with the linux fdisk 2 primary partition (the first one FAT32 and the second one EXT2).

Of course this means to install the linux again and to backup all the software from the second HDD (8gb) ;(
It's a lot of work and it isn't worth it, so stick to my best advise "if it works, leave it that way" ;)

P.S.
>Complicated already?!
Nope. To have 2 HDD(each with more than 2 partitions) with Windows95 installed on both of them and to boot Windows from the second HDD partition #2 is complicated ;). That's because Windows looks in BIOS and boots only from first one C: (BIOS name: 0x80).

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