Joe wrote:
Elmer E. Dow wrote:
Recall that I used the DOS console to run fdisk /mbr to get XP to
boot. Would installing grub on the MBR make Linux once again see the
whole drive?
It should at least allow correct booting. I wish I knew for sure. The
XP Disc Manager and fdisk seem to agree on what's where, I really
don't understand why gparted isn't seeing exactly the same thing.
The Lenny installer is normally able to see Windows installations, and
to either offer to include them in the grub menu or do so without
asking. Even if it doesn't, that's easy to fix, as long as it puts
itself in the right place. You'll certainly learn something from the
early stages of the Lenny installation.
Since you have XP recovery media and it's a new installation, you have
nothing to lose by experimenting. There's clearly something odd going
on, as I would certainly expect the recovery to have taken the whole
drive, possibly splitting it into more than one partition, but all
Windows types. And I've never known an XP installation, whether from
recovery or Microsoft media, to need a repair to the MBR before it
would boot. That's just silly, recovery should be simple enough for a
businessman to do. As to Partition Magic, it certainly should do no
harm and may throw some more light on the situation.
Also, a recovery partition normally is just that, possibly a hidden
type, but always listed in the partition table, showing in the Disc
Manager or with fdisk. I've never seen apparently unallocated space
used before, which tells us that the BIOS must know something about
the disc details, and is maintaining some kind of safeguard against
deletion. I'd assume that the Disc Manager is also unable to write there.
My feeling is that the partition table is not completely standard. If
I wasn't worried about XP, I'd probably write the numbers down, delete
it all with fdisk and recreate it, then write the table back to disc.
That won't touch the data, but it might mess up something that the
recovery system uses. Maybe, initiating the recovery again from the
BIOS would restore it, maybe not. I'd only try it if I was certain I'd
never need Windows recovery again. On the other hand, presumably the
separate recovery media you have should work even on a new blank HD.
Best of luck, I don't think I can offer any more advice. If you do
solve it, let us know, it might help someone else in future.
I found the answer here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=437814
fdisk /dev/hda
m
w
This rewrites the partition table. Gparted is now displaying the
partitions in what appears to be a correct manner. I'm off and running.
Now I can finish my multiboot installation. Will post again if there are
any complications caused by this procedure. Thanks for your input.
Elmer
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