Reading Linux

Hi guys and girls,

I recently had my HDD formatted under linux. So now I want to reformat it so that I can use windows again. But dos fdisk won't see the linux partition. What can I do?

Thank you in advance,
Agathoklis

Well, you can reboot into a linux environment, and format the disk with fdisk. First size the partition as you see fit, then change the partition type to HPFS\NTFS. I usually use this method for a different reason. The Windows XP cd, when creating a partition for itself, leaves like 8 MB of storage space unused. This method gets all of it but 1 MB onto a partition...

Call me nit-picky... :]

Have any other issues, just ask!

I should be ashamed of myself.

First size the partition as you see fit, then change the partition type to HPFS\NTFS.

Last time I checked you couldn't make NTFS partitions with fdisk but maybe I'm wrong. Or does this just give it an NTFS signature so that the dos fdisk will be able to see it so it can then be deleted by the dos fdisk?

There has been partial NTFS support in the linux kernel for a long time but it's only been read only and the write support was buggy as hell.

Yeah, that's the only thing it does. Make it a windows findabled partition. I think billy'd have a fit if we learned how to make NTFS. Too bad we'd never use it...

I should be ashamed of myself.

*COUGH* FAT/FAT32 *COUGH*

*COUGH* UNIVERSALLY SUPPORTED FILESYSTEM, R-RW IN EVERY OS *COUGH*

*COUGH* SUPPORED BY FDISK IN BOTH DOS AND LINUX *COUGH*

Sorry, it's this cold weather you see...

Pistol Grip Pump In My Lap At All Times

Like everyone else has said, do your partitioning in linux, then save the table and reboot.

Actually, the best way would be to just clear all the partitions in fdisk/cfdisk in linux, then let fdisk for windows set you up with a FAT32 partition, then have your windows installation change it to NTFS if you need it.

Pistol Grip Pump In My Lap At All Times

Indeed, fat has it's potential, but it doesn't support a lot of the better features, and it is my understanding that the filesystem is slower? If have intentions of dual booting, I by all means agree with you, but is NTFS all that much better?

I should be ashamed of myself.

This post was edited by Aynjell on Dec 18, 2004.

I think I mistated my intentions. The entire reason to initially format the partition as FAT/FAT32 was because linux has 100% unrestricted support for it (unlike NTFS), and windows reads it. The purpose for this is so that when you format under linux you don't strain your disk partitioner, and then you let the windows xp/2000/2003 etc. installer format to NTFS (which it always asks).

And yes, FAT is not feature 'rich' like NTFS, which has journaling (which when you write to the harddrive it first writes to a special portion of the partition called the journal the file name and where the file will be written, so if the computer crashes, it doesn't have to do a full scan to find what didn't complete).

Pistol Grip Pump In My Lap At All Times