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.
--
Joe
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