Interestingly eenough, I had the same problem -- but the symptoms were
reversed. Linux (and MS Windows 2000 RC2, so the problem wasn't
LINUX-specific) installation destroyed my Windoze partition. (It _looked_
there, but key files were mangled beyond comprehension.)
Wound up pulling out Partition Magic, setting up all the partitions,
formatting them in their respective OS's, and then testing each boot after
each install.
I think the 3 OS's (2 MS OS's & Linux) each had a different idea of what the
drive geometry was, and it took a complete system slick to get them all on
the same page....
Brian
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Glamm [mailto:glamm@ece.umn.edu]
Sent: None
To: jt@npdaxp.fuw.edu.pl
Cc: rajputgv@wces.ernet.in; linux-newbie@vger.rutgers.edu;
linux-net@vger.rutgers.edu
Subject: Re: Problem in loading Linux
> > Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 17:05:46 +0530 (IST)
> > From: rajput g v be comp 56 <rajputgv@wces.ernet.in>
>
> > i had red-hat linux 6.1 on one partition and dos on the other,both
> >2.1 GB each.Then i installed win95 on Dos partition.on this it stopped
> >showing lilo at boot prompt.Then on using a bootable linux-floppy,
> ...
> >fsck.ext2 :Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open
/dev/hda8.
> ...
>
> Sounds like Win95 damaged your Linux partition(s). :-(
There should be a FAQ on this somewhere..
I ran into this exact same problem about a month ago. In setting up
the first 1G of my 18G drive I allocated 768 cyls. to Windows 98, the next
384 to Linux (yes, these were 1M cylinder sizes). Installed Windows,
installed Linux root partition into the corresponding partitions. About
a week later I found that Linux wouldn't boot; tried to fsck, symptoms
as above. Turns out Windows thought its partition was about 18MB larger
than I had allocated to it and proceeded to overwrite the first 18MB of
/ with the swap file.
I ended up chucking and redoing / by:
1) redoing the Linux root partition to start at 800 cyls (instead of
just after Windows),
2) mke2fs on the root partition (but left it unpopulated),
3) reboot into Windows, *filled up its root partition* entirely (i.e.,
left 0 bytes free)
4) reboot off the rescue disk, e2fsck on the Linux root partition to
verify
that filling up the Windows root partition hadn't overwritten my
freshly made filesystem,
5) re-populate /, re-lilo, reboot.
IMHO - it is necessary to install Windows and figure out what exactly
it thinks the partition size is. Not through fdisk, but actually
clicking the properties tab for the disk partition in question and
examining the size field printed there.
Why Windows can't read the partition table correctly is beyond me.
I would love to see SCSI disks that (when partitioned) reported
multiple LUNs (one LUN per partition) on the next boot, as sort of a
"hardware electric fence" enforcing partition boundaries on the software.
-Bob
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Feb 15 2000 - 21:00:36 EST