First the background:

I'm installing windows 98 and Mandrake 8.1 on a brand new 60GB drive. I made the mistake of installing linux first, then windows.

When installing mandrake first, i made several partitions to make room for windows later. it looked like this:

"C drive" - FAT32 - 2GB (reserved for the windows OS)
"D drive" - FAT32 - 20GB (reserved for all the windows programs)
Linux Root - ext3? - 38GB (for all of linux)
swap space

Mandrake installed nicely, so then i went to install windows 98 and upon installing, it gave an error of some sort and said "no no - can't install - bad file system" or something similar. The problem was fixed by reformatting the "C" partition using MS's version of FDISK. Then windows installed nicely. However, when using FDISK, it shows a 2GB primary partition, and a 58GB secondary partition. (but i *know* that there is a "D", a "Linux Root" and a "Swap" in there. )

Windows does not detect any other partitions in My Computer. Mandrake on the other hand sees all of them. Basically i have 20GB of windows FAT32 space that i can't access with windows - 1/3 of my whole drive.

I know i can fix the problem by formatting all 58GB and partition it using MS FDISK, but i would lose my linux and have to start over: not the prefered option. Using the Mandrake DiskDrake does not help. For some reason DiskDrake's partitions don't register with the standard MS FDISK and windows can't see the partitions.

Does anyone know how i can get my 20GB "D Drive" back without formatting the whole thing?

First of all Windows 98 or any windows (as far as I know) does not recognise Linux partitions (Ext2, Ext3, ReiserFS, etc), so that's NOT unusual.

Secondly you should install windows 98 first and Linux second.

As for seeing D Drive, have you tried booting up into linux to see it and is there anything important on D drive that you haven't backed-up.

I know windows won't find linux partitions, but it should still recognize a FAT32 made by linux when it was installed.

I really should have installed windows first, however this is my first duel-boot setup and in my enthusuasm, went with linux first then windows [oops.. i've learned my lesson now]

Currently there is nothing on the "D" drive, but since windows can't seem to find it, that's 20GB that i can't reclaim unless i repart/reformat/reinstall everything. Obviously, if i don't have to, i'm not going to.

The problem is that the "D" partition was made as a FAT32 *by mandrake linux*, not MS FDISK. Windows doesn't seem to know that it exists [but it should].

I suggest repartition and reformat the hard drive and install windows 98 first.

Good luck.

Before repartitioning it'd try 2 things. First I'd format D: again from Linux
mkfs.vfat /dev/hda? where ? is the partition number in Linux notation.
Second, you may try to delete D: from Linux (fdisk or something) and then let Windows to create it again.
And, well, second thing. D: must be extended. Windows won't see second primary.

Examine the partition labels as shown by fdisk. Maybe you don't have it set to what windows wants.

Here's what my win98 partition looks like.
[root@rocket bill]# fdisk /dev/hda

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 524 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 522 4192933+ b Win95 FAT32


It occurs to me windows98 may require the partition to be a primary partition rather than an extended one, but don't hold me to that.



-Bill