Having Ext3 and NTFS on the same physical Hard Disk
 

Hi,

Just a quick question. I am planning to

1. format my Laptop (40 GB HDD)
2. create two partitions 20 GB and 20 GB
3. install Windows XP in one partition formatting it as NTFS
4. install Fedora Core 3 in the other partition formatting it as ext3

Wondering if this is a bad idea to have two entirely different filesystems in the same physical hard disk? My mind is telling me it's not.

Thanks,
McoreD

Its fine I have a 60gb setup the same way. :)

I personally used norton partition magic to do the job.

1X Win 2K NTFS,2X Win XP Pro NTFS,1X PCLinuxOS with journalised ReiserFS boot and root partitions and Linux Swap,1X Mandrake 10.1 with journalised ReiserFS boot and root partitions and Linux Swap,1X "data" partition NTFS,1X "storage" partition NTFS and 1X "stuff "partition Fat 32........all on 1 SATA Maxtor 200 GB........everything working fine...:lol:

Thanks guys. I am much convinced that it is not unhealthy to the harddisk. :D

I was always using two or more seperate physicsal harddisks when trying different OSes.

Thanks again,
McoreD

Blog style Post...
 

Backed up the documents in the Inspiron 9100. Rebooted with the Windows XP SP2 CD. Booted from the CD. Formatted the 40 GB hard disk. Deleted current partition. Created 2 partitions.

C: is 20 GB NTFS for Windows XP.

D: is 20 GB unformatted left reserved for Linux.



Installed Windows XP without a problem. Rebooted with Fedora Core 3 CD. Booted with the CD. When it came to choosing the destination to install, there were 2 options.

1. Automatically partition and install.

2. Manually partition using something and install



Options in #1 were 1. Erase all Linux partions, 2. Erase the entire hard disk and 3. Use free space.

Erase all Linux partitions option didnt work as I didn't have any Linux. Use free space option complained I didn't have any partitions set or something like that. Basically NONE of options in Automatically partition and install didn't work. So I tried Manually partitioning. I was dissapointed to see there wasn't an easy option to split the 20 GB partition to \ and swap. So I gave up and rebooted to Windows XP.



Formatted the unformatted partition as FAT32 and rebooted using the Fedora CD. Came to the same step where it complained cannot find any partitions or something similar error. Gave up for the second time. Rebooted to Windows XP.



Remembered my Norton Partition Magic. Installed it in Windows XP. I set the following tasks in Partition Magic.

Delete the 20 GB partition. Create \ drive with 19 GB. swap drive with 1 GB.

It did the tasks and rebooted. Used the Fedora CD to boot and came to the same step where I had to choose the partitions. This time as there were two partitions of ext3 were available, I assigned them to / and swap. Finally Installed Fedora Core 3. During creation of the boot loader it didn't detect the Windows XP installation. I was bit worried but I manually added hda1.



After Linux was done, tried rebooting to Windows XP. Windows XP boot screen showed up and after a few seconds - an error: autochk.exe missing. Then a BSOD and rebooted. This kept happening. I knew Grub was doing its job fine. Something must have messed with the Windows XP partition.

Went back to the Desktop PC and did some googling. Found some similar threads:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/history/293617 - this guy had the same problem but with Boot Magic.
http://www.techspot.com/vb/archive/index/t-6366.html - this guy had the same problem with Parition Magic.

So it turns out to be Parition Magic and all these magic software are screwing up the other partition somehow. None of the tasks had anything to do with the Windows partition but this has happened to many people.

Booted from Windows XP CD and came to the step where to choose the partition. Bizarre. The Windows XP partition was not NTFS anymore. It was OS/2 Partition or something like that. I thought of starting from scratch.

Rebooted with the Windows XP SP2 CD. Booted from the CD. Formatted the 40 GB hard disk. Deleted all the partitions. Created 3 partitions.

20 GB as NTFS for Windows XP
19 GB unformatted for Linux
1 GB unformatted for swap

It creates another 8 mb useless partition (so 4 partitions actually); I haven't found a way to avoid creating that 8 mb partition.

Installed Windows XP without a problem. Rebooted with Fedora Core 3 CD. I had the same error above with the Automatic Partitioning. So I used Manual Partionining again and assigned 19 GB to \ and 1 GB to swap. Installed Fedora Core 3. Rebooted and phew Windows XP was loading perfect.

My lesson: DO NOT use Partition Magic or anyother magic software to do your partitioning tasks. Better do it manually.

Well I never had that problem so. Well glad you finall figured it out.

And btw you want the 8mb partition.

Here is why. ;)

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d.../diskpart.mspx

"Applies to master boot record (MBR) disks only. The byte offset at which to create the extended partition If no offset is given, the partition will start at the beginning of the first free space on the disk. The offset is cylinder snapped. The offset is rounded to the closest cylinder boundary. For example, if you specify an offset that is 27 MB and the cylinder size is 8 MB, the offset is rounded to the 24 MB boundary."

27 MB is the default offset so you get the cylinder size of 8 MB. hehe Just know its for extended partition. So you can not delete it apparently even if you try. ;)

Oh and appariently its only for dynamic disks.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;225822

"One cylinder can be up to 8MB, depending on drive geometry and translation."