dual boot windows and linux

[majikman]

if someone could please help me.... i just installed knoppix to my system. i have two hdd. i have windows xp on my primary with 3 partitions. i installed knoppix 3.6 to my second hdd and it also had 3 parittions. after i installed it, knoppix kept my system partition on my first hdd but it somehow deleted the partition information for the other 2 i don't think it actually deleted the files in those two partitoins though because i can still detect the drives as healthy ntfs drives from windows disk management. anyone know what happened? i have lots of very important stuff on those two partitions. thanks in advance

 

[majikman]

oh... and just to add to that, under disk management, i can see the names of the partitions that i had created originally. also, i can see all the data on the two paritions properly from linux. its just not doable from windows. so i guess what i'm asking is... how do i remount a disk drive in windows? all my pr0n!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! no!!!!!!!!!!! and most especially... damn, like 8 years of collecting mp3's... i need that stuff back. thats 80 gigs of info that wasted away countless hours of me downloading to get it all. so if someone can PLEASE help me out, i'd be VERY THANKFUL

 

[Steel Chicken]

Dude, you screwed around with your partitions without making backup of valuable stuff? Dumbass!!!

Anyways, theres a couple of things you can try. You didnot mention which version of window you use, so lets assume XP. You said you *can* boot into Windows, but the additional partitions no longer show up? As drive letters?

What happens when you go into Control Panel\Administrative Tools\Computer Management\Disk Management? What shows up there, what are the properties of the janked partitions? Some more info would be helpful.

 

[phaelinx]

I dont understand why people partition hds. Especially 3 partitions. It does not at any way speed up the drive or let you access stuff faster. It causes problems in the future if you wanna make it 1 drive again. If you are too much of a noob to make 1 drive because its over 137gigs than you might as well not even touch a pc. And if your having problems with hard drive partitions, how do you figure you're going to magically learn linux without screwing something else up?

 

[Tweakin]

I dont understand why people partition hds. Especially 3 partitions. It does not at any way speed up the drive or let you access stuff faster. It causes problems in the future if you wanna make it 1 drive again. If you are too much of a noob to make 1 drive because its over 137gigs than you might as well not even touch a pc. And if your having problems with hard drive partitions, how do you figure you're going to magically learn linux without screwing something else up?

What on earth are you talking about? Why, in the name of god, would I want a 120gb or 200gb harddrive in one partition for a windows install? Why not a partitioned 120gb to be 20gigs for a windows install and 100gigs for storage, thus not having to format every single file you have just to reinstall your OS? What if I want more then one OS? What if my OS doesnt need 200gb to be installed on?

 

[phaelinx]

Ever heard of backing up your important files? Lets say you do happen to format a drive to 20 gigs partition for windows, what happens after you install lets say ut2k4 plus a few mods (already 10 gigs), doom3 and a few more games? Then what? you have to select which games you want installed and remove them. Its stupid. Format a drive to 1 partition, backup your important files onto either ANOTHER HARD DRIVE, or 4.7gig DVDS and leave the damn drive as 1 partition. If anything its slows down your drive as it tries to read 2 spots at once..I guarantee you a 200gig hd with 1 partition will have faster read/write/ms speeds as a 200gig hd with more than 1 partitions.


And for reformatting..Um, you can install windows overtop of itself and thus..NOT LOSE ANYTHING. All you have to do is copy the shortcuts back over and bingo, back in business. There is absolutely no reason to format a drive every time you need to reinstall windows. Only time a drive needs to be formatted is when it is first installed into a computer and is being setup un Disk Management. Other than that formatting a million times is most likely going to cause sector errors eventually.

The first thing that usually goes wrong in a drive is the Heads. People that have their drive defragging 24/7 will eventually have drive errors, along with the people that format constantly. The only people that format to install windows are paranoid noobs.

People have this great dilusion that installing windows on a separate partition is better and faster. It is not. It causes headaches in the future as for removing programs to fit others and if that person wants to go back to 1 partition, thats an even bigger headache.

 

[KnishofDeath]

Ever heard of backing up your important files? Lets say you do happen to format a drive to 20 gigs partition for windows, what happens after you install lets say ut2k4 plus a few mods (already 10 gigs), doom3 and a few more games? Then what? you have to select which games you want installed and remove them. Its stupid. Format a drive to 1 partition, backup your important files onto either ANOTHER HARD DRIVE, or 4.7gig DVDS and leave the damn drive as 1 partition. If anything its slows down your drive as it tries to read 2 spots at once..I guarantee you a 200gig hd with 1 partition will have faster read/write/ms speeds as a 200gig hd with more than 1 partitions.

HAHAHAHA. this is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Who says you have to install your games on your windows partitions? YOU DONT.
here is how my comp is setup. I have a 120 gb HD.20 gb ntfs for windows only.
80gb ntfs for games and such. and the other 20 gb is dedicated to linux.
I then have another 80gb for misc windows files and for when I feel the need to back stuff up. As well as a 80gb fat32 external drive for all my movies and MP3's. that way I can access them in windows and linux without complications.

.

People have this great dilusion that installing windows on a separate partition is better and faster. It is not. It causes headaches in the future as for removing programs to fit others and if that person wants to go back to 1 partition, thats an even bigger headache

I format every 6 months and have done so for the last 5 years with no problems. windows after 6 months gets cluttered with crap and slows down. The only way to get it completley like new again is to format and start with a fresh install. Thus having a seperate partition for windows makes it alot easier. I only have to format the partition with windows on it and not the whole drive. Your whole point is silly and stupid.

 

[Tweakin]

Ok, so. Lets say I have a 120gb drive all in one nice happy partition. 2gigs of that drive is windows itself, 15 gigs is my installed software and games. Then, I also have 25gigs of music, 50gigs of movies, 5gigs of artwork, and a few gigs of personal files. I should just go ahead and back all that up (exept windows and installed software) to some disc media to format the drive and reinstall windows or install a new operating system? What if i can't afford another harddrive to use for backup? All i could afford was one big 120gig drive?

Why would I want to do a dirty install of windows as opposed to a clean install? I own Windows, I like to format/reinstall once a year or so... helps speed the system up, makes it feel new. You are telling me I shouldnt do this because all harddrives should only be in one partition and I will lose all of my files?

What if I want Windows and another operating system like linux on my machine, which is not possible with 1 partition and 1 harddrive?

Formatting is only for tinfoil hat sporting nut balls like me?

Why did someone create the means to partition a harddrive into more then one partition if it is completely useless and harmful?

There is no reason to tell someone they should not set up multiple partitions on a harddrrve for a desktop system. I am not going on with this any more.

 

[Steel Chicken]

The age old question of using one big partition versus many smaller ones has been asked and discussed to death many times. In reality, there are advantages and disadvantages too both. Choosing one over another does not make someone a n00b. Choosing one or another without thinking through the differences though is a bad idea. Messing around with partitions and installing New OS's without backup is a horrible idea.

What I have done with my past 3 main rigs is:

One 100GB IDE drive, broken into 4 25GB partitions.
each 20GB part is for a different OS (im currently running 3), 4th i keep in reserve for some flavor of Linux

all my other junk goes on 2 SATA drives with RAID mirroring.

this seems to work well for me. I can unplug the SATA drives when fooling around with stuff, and all I have to do is make sure I don't hose the pimary IDE drive partition. If I do, I just reinstall the OS or use one windows built in MBR and partition fixing tools. I make monthly backups to DVD of important stuff...

 

[phaelinx]

HAHAHAHA. this is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Who says you have to install your games on your windows partitions? YOU DONT.
here is how my comp is setup. I have a 120 gb HD.20 gb ntfs for windows only.
80gb ntfs for games and such. and the other 20 gb is dedicated to linux.
I then have another 80gb for misc windows files and for when I feel the need to back stuff up. As well as a 80gb fat32 external drive for all my movies and MP3's. that way I can access them in windows and linux without complications.

.



I format every 6 months and have done so for the last 5 years with no problems. windows after 6 months gets cluttered with crap and slows down. The only way to get it completley like new again is to format and start with a fresh install. Thus having a seperate partition for windows makes it alot easier. I only have to format the partition with windows on it and not the whole drive. Your whole point is silly and stupid.

During the windows installation, it asks you to delete the current windows folder. Point 1 of your "clutter" sentence is silly and stupid as you can remove the windows folder then reinstall overtop of it. The only reason windows slows down is because people are installing stupid crap programs and demos then uninstalling them leaving the reminants in the registry. I've had Xp installed on this machine for almost 3 years and it still feels smooth as silk.


And to reply to the other guy. The reason you can partition is for different operating systems on 1 drive. Its always been this way since Dos 6.xx using FDISK.
People then found that magically you can partition a drive and have it show up as multiple drives in windows. And when you partition a drive with more than 1 operating system that 1 operating system is the only thing accessing the drive, unlike in windows where its accessing both simultaneously. Hence drive will die quicker as the head is being used more.

True it has become helpful..but people misconstrue the actual reason for partition a hd.

 

[phaelinx]

The age old question of using one big partition versus many smaller ones has been asked and discussed to death many times. In reality, there are advantages and disadvantages too both. Choosing one over another does not make someone a n00b. Choosing one or another without thinking through the differences though is a bad idea. Messing around with partitions and installing New OS's without backup is a horrible idea.

What I have done with my past 3 main rigs is:

One 100GB IDE drive, broken into 4 25GB partitions.
each 20GB part is for a different OS (im currently running 3), 4th i keep in reserve for some flavor of Linux

all my other junk goes on 2 SATA drives with RAID mirroring.

this seems to work well for me. I can unplug the SATA drives when fooling around with stuff, and all I have to do is make sure I don't hose the pimary IDE drive partition. If I do, I just reinstall the OS or use one windows built in MBR and partition fixing tools. I make monthly backups to DVD of important stuff...

Bingo, thats exactly what partitioning is for.

 

[majikman]

you guys that are flaming me for having multiple partitoins are the DUMBASSES. i have linux and windows xp. what if i want to transfer files between the two OSes? windows xp can't write to ext3 and linux can't write to ntfs. so what do i do? i need a fat32 partition.

as for my 3 ntfs partitions, i have one for windows, the other 2 for everything else. sure, you can just reinstall windows xp over the previous installation in the same folder. but what if you don't want to? what if you get a trojan/virus/spyware on your windows xp partition that you just can't remove? you format the entire partition. i haven't encountered anything of the like that i haven't been able to remove as of just yet, but what if it does happen? its a security measure for me.

to add to that, when i installed linux, i didn't give it any instructions to in any way modify any of my ntfs parititions. as it turns out, the partitions are still intact, they're just hidden. i'm not as stupid as you are. don't worry about it.

oh.. and about backing up... i have 80 gigs worth of music and video. i suppose i should just go out and backup everything to 100 some cd's right? or wait, since you're so smart, i should use dvd media and back everything up to 15 some dvd's huh? seriously, it amazes me how some of you are considered very intellectual amongst your friends because of your computer knowledge yet when you come onto forums like this, you make yoursefl seem like complete asses. stop and ask a question before you go off deciding that other people are stupid because it only makes you look stupid. if you're here to offer help, then offer it. but don't go off trying to make people seem like they're less than you just to boost an ego that you really don't have. especially if its going to make you look like an ass.

so yes, hdd's might run faster on one partition. but its not practical for my application you jackasses

 

[HHunt]

Now that went overboard fast
You might want to look into gpart, a linux tool that will scan a harddrive and tell you where if detects partition-start markers. If you use the information you get to create new partitions identical to the old ones, but (for the love of, etc) don't format them afterwards, they should be back as they were. I've had to do this once, and all I lost was time. (The solaris 8 / x86 installer has cryptic ways of asking "do you want to overwrite your partition table" )

I do wonder, though. What does windows see where they should be? Unformatted space, or partitions of an unknown type? Please, check and tell us before doing anything heavy.

edit: The "how/why do you partition your drives"-discussion is interesting and all, but ... another thread, perhaps? It's noise to the "help this guy recover his partitions"-signal.

 

[Cheetoz]

Well, I use partitions so everything is more clean.

80 gb sata has 70gb c: for windows games and everything, and 10gb for my D: where my setups and sht are stored. This makes it way easier when I have to reinstall windows, or anything else that might happen.

oh, and sry for continueing with the offtopic stuff, just wanted to post my opnion.

 

[KnishofDeath]

I do wonder, though. What does windows see where they should be? Unformatted space, or partitions of an unknown type? Please, check and tell us before doing anything heavy.

edit: The "how/why do you partition your drives"-discussion is interesting and all, but ... another thread, perhaps? It's noise to the "help this guy recover his partitions"-signal.

On my system windows sees my linux partitions as empty space. It would be very easy to partition over linux if you wrent careful. lol.

 

[phaelinx]

Once funny is no one is flaming you. But if you want to resort into insults then it is you who is the dumbass for stooping to a 3rd grade level. Learn to read, son. Scroll up and read, is anyone flaming you? Nope. Questioning your reasoning behind having multiple partitions, but no flaming was done. I was stating the negative points of having multiple partitions on one drive.

anyways, im done with this thread.

 

[majikman]

Dude, you screwed around with your partitions without making backup of valuable stuff? Dumbass!!!

calling me a dumbass is insulting

And if your having problems with hard drive partitions, how do you figure you're going to magically learn linux without screwing something else up?

questioning my intelligence without even digging throughly into my situation is even more insulting

if you're going to personally insult me, thats flaming. so, and i quote, "Learn to read, son. Scroll up and read".

you guys just totally screwed up my post by posting all this crap rather than helping me out.

 

[Azphira]

When reinstalling XP on the OS partition, how do you keep it from making itself a drive letter other than C, I tried it once and it made the OS partition drive F or something silly.

 

[Cheetoz]

You can use partition magic to change the drive letter. but maybe there was already a copy of windows, so it was making itself another drive?

 

[Tweakin]

calling me a dumbass is insulting



questioning my intelligence without even digging throughly into my situation is even more insulting

if you're going to personally insult me, thats flaming. so, and i quote, "Learn to read, son. Scroll up and read".

you guys just totally screwed up my post by posting all this crap rather than helping me out.

Sorry for going off topic on your post, the comment by phaelinx just got me a bit fired up. I hate hearing someone give bad advice in a hostile way. Saying everyone should only have 1 partition and thats final is like saying everyone should only have 10 partitions and no less or they don't understand harddrives.

.....

Anyway. I wasnt able to pick apart your last post very well. The partitions are still there (in Computer Management->Disk Management) but you cant get to them, in say, explorer? Are they still marked as NTFS and shared properly? Do you remember there drive letters and are they present in Disk Management. Can you get to a prompt and access the drives by letter?

It just sounds weird that linux can access them but windows cant.

 

[majikman]

Tweakin, correct, the partitions still exist in under disk management in windows. it still recognizes them as NTFS and it even says that they're healthy. its just that there is no drive letter assigned to them and windows explorer shows nothing. i tried right clicking on each partition to see if i could assign it a drive letter but the only option that it gives me is to "Delete Paritition" or "Help", neither which provides me with any help.

i also posted on knoppix.net forums and they did point out to me that the partitions are now hidden, allowing only linux to see them. i checked this by running qtparted. the problem now is that i can't unhide those partitions using qtparted. i change them to unhidden and save my changes, but once i restart, same problem. i'm not sure how the linux installation is messing with this so much.

any suggestions anyone?

 

[Steel Chicken]

Yeah I called you a dumbass.
People who fuck around with partitions without backing up, *are* dumbasses.
On the occasion when i've done it, and screwed something up, the first thing I did after was smack myself in the head and say "you dumbass"

What you should have said was ,"Yep, your right I screwed up. Haha, silly me. Can you help now please?" I note how you conveiently ignored my questions to actually help you.

Oh, and if you think 80GB of music and video (let me guess illegally downloaded music and pron) can't be backed up easily, well then you haven't considered other options. CD's? DVD's? Lots of other options. (hint: buy an extra HD off Ebay or somewhere cheap and backup everything *BEFORE* you screw around with partitions or other OS's)

The thing is, instead of rolling with it for a laugh or two (as intended) you got all crotchety and defensive. So enjoy working your problem out. buh-bye!