Partition issue

[Sridhar_Rao]

When I got my Desktop assembled by a vendor, he partitioned the hard drive such that I had both Linux as well as windows as OS. I am not sure but I must have set aside 5-6 GB for linux and the rest for windows. I have three (I guess logical) partitions that is visible in windows C: D: and E:. I have installed win98 in C:, Win XP in D: drive. While booting I had the option of linux or win as OS, then secondary choice between win98 & XP. I completely lost linux while reinstalling win98, I must have overwritten the bootloader or something. The entire disk space set aside for linux is lost for ever. Now I want to repartition the hard drive and format the disk and recover all availbable space on hard disk (40 GB). A friend tried his hand at this and messed up. Using floppy disc he deleted all the extended and logical partitions and now I have the fdisk showing only 34 GB. He had no idea about what primary, extended & logical partitions are. How should I proceed from here without taking professional help?

[47shailesh]

use Windows XP disk or Linux Disk use boot from CD and create partion again...

while using Windows CD the ext2 partion for Linux that was earlier created willbe shown as unknown partion fromat that if wan to use that space in windows... else leave it as it is for installing Linux into it...

Post if you did'nt get my point

[Sridhar_Rao]

Thank you for your reply, but there is a hitch. I don't have linux boot floppy nor XP boot CD. All I have is the win98 boot floppy with fdisk. After going through net I figured out what primary, extended and logical partitions are. Now I see a primary partition of 9539 MB and extended DOS partition of 28663 MB, 37.3 BG in all. Where is the rest of the 40 GB? Why don't I see it in display partition information. Even when I select the non-Dos partition, I still these two partitions only. How can I recover the 2.7 GB of lost space?

[Pathik]

if u make partitions u ll lose space... also there r other reasons...the 1000:1024 one... so in a 40 gb harddisk u shd get arnd 37-38 gb on it...
i dont remember the exact calculations...

[Sridhar_Rao]

Yes, I had read about that. I infer that my hard disk had two primary partitions, one for linux and other for windows. I would like to know if a primary partition created for linux is visible in fdisk. the fdisk displayed only one primary partition.

[..:: Free Radical ::..]

awww. c'mon
You may still be able to recover the linux partition (that is if you only deleted the partitions and did not format the linux partitions).
You cannot see the linux partitions as is in Win98 (or any other windows os for that matter) unless you install a driver for the concerned file system. There used to be this nifty tool called 'Paragon Mount Everything' which could do this.
If you want to start all over, use fdisk from DOS to partition:
one primary partition, make it active say about 10gb for your setup.
Use it to load Win98 (FAT32).
Make the remaining extended partition.
make atleast 2 logical partitions in it.
Keep one for data eg. music, movies, software etc.
(Make it a point to never format this one )
You can use other logical partitions for swap or other operating systems.
Use your Linux Disk to partition one of the logical partitions you want.
You must be careful using the Linux bootloader or you may mess it up.
If you can try getting PowerQuest/Norton Partition Magic or get a disk of Hiren's Boot CD. May make things easier.

Try Gparted.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net


Very good alternative to Partition Magic.