Linux/XP HD Partition Question

[Skyguy]

Hello everyone,

I think I may have just messed up royally!!

I took the plunge and installed Linux Kubuntu 6.06 last night. I installed Linux to a partition on my larger (Slaved) HD and everything seemed to be okay. When it was done, I took out the CD and rebooted. Again, nothing odd happened except that I was having trouble viewing the files on my existing HD's (got an error saying the drives had not been mounted), but I now know why I got that message.

HOWEVER... When I restarted back in XP, I noticed that one of my pre-existing partitions has now vanished!

In it's place, I now see it listed as only a 'Local Disk' - and now XP is now asking me if I would like to format it!

When I installed Linux, I purposefully chose a very small size for new Linux partition - ~8 Gb. My original Windows setup for that secondary HD had 3 partitons. All but one had more than enough space to handle losing 8 Gb to Linux. The 'missing' partition had ~10 GB of space used and at least 20 GB free space.

Have I lost that partiton forever??? What can I do to get it back???

I would still like to use Linux (dual booting for the moment), but I think I need a lesson in how to install it properly so it and XP live in 'relative' harmony.
What I'll probably end up doing is move XP to my larger drive and giving Linux exclusive reign over my smaller drive.

Thank you!

Here is some information on my setup:

Current hardware configuration:
AMD K7 Athlon 2.6 Ghz CPU;
ASUS A7N8X-X MoBo;
512 MB DDR RAM;
Celestica Gold Edition RADEON 9200 128MB
WDC WD153BA Master HD 16 GB; WDC800JB-00ETA0 Slave HD 80 GB;
LITE-ON LTR 32123S 32x12x40x RW, Sony DVD-ROM DDU1615
ATI TV Wonder PCI Card;
and an old Creative AudioPCI (ES1371,ES1373) (WDM) sound card

Here is what Linux says about my current partition setup:

Disk /dev/hda: 15.3 GB, 15382241280 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1870 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdal * 1 1870 15020743+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/hdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdbl 1 4157 33388960+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary. f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hdb2 4157 9730 44757122
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hdb5 4158 5203 8401995 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb6 8317 9730 11346016+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hdb7 * 5204 8185 23952883+ 83 Linux
/dev/hdb8 8186 8316 1052226 82 Linux swap / Solaris

[ImNeat]

How are your HDs set up?

Is this right:

Your first HD (master) has your normal windows install on it.

Your second HD (slave) had another windows install and two more storage partitions. You installed Kubuntu on a new (fourth) partition, but it ended up overwriting some of the existing partitions.

?

[Skyguy]

How are your HDs set up?

Is this right:

Your first HD (master) has your normal windows install on it.

-That's correct. My first HD (the master) has Windows installed on it. It's the 16 GB drive, and the smaller of the two HD's I have installed on my PC.

Your second HD (slave) had another windows install and two more storage partitions. You installed Kubuntu on a new (fourth) partition, but it ended up overwriting some of the existing partitions.

?

-Not quite. That secondary HD (the 80 GB drive) didn't have another windows installed on it. But it's where I keep all my personal files and it's where 90% of my installed programs run off of.

Before installing Linux, that 80 GB drive was devided into 3 partitions:
-Volume 3 (drive letter "D" under windows); Size: ~31 GB (~19 GB currently free) -> The partition where I have installed most of my programs and keep my active files and documents.

-Volume 4 (drive letter "G" under windows); Size: ~38 GB (it must have had ~27 GB of free space) -> This is the "missing" partiton. It's where I kept a lot of my important files. But even more importantly, it was where *all* of my regular system backups were stored.
Because I saw this partition had so much available space, I thought Linux would just 'chop out' an 8 GB partition of space for it's own usage.

-Volume 5 (drive letter "H" under windows); Size: ~11 GB (~1 GB currently free)-> The partition where I keep most of my non-critical data (eg. music, pictures, odds and ends, et cetera...)

[devils casper]

according to output of 'fdisk -l' command, you have three NTFS Partitions in second harddisk.
boot up Linux and execute this code in terminal/konsole

cd /media
sudo mkdir win_d win_g win_h
sudo mount  -t  ntfs  /dev/hdb1  /media/win_d
sudo mount  -t  ntfs  /dev/hdb5  /media/win_g
sudo mount  -t  ntfs  /dev/hdb6  /media/win_h

check the contents of win_d, win_g and win_h folders in /media folder after executing that code.






casper

[Skyguy]

according to output of 'fdisk -l' command, you have three NTFS Partitions in second harddisk.
boot up Linux and execute this code in terminal/konsole

cd /media
sudo mkdir win_d win_g win_h
sudo mount  -t  ntfs  /dev/hdb1  /media/win_d
sudo mount  -t  ntfs  /dev/hdb5  /media/win_g
sudo mount  -t  ntfs  /dev/hdb6  /media/win_h

check the contents of win_d, win_g and win_h folders in /media folder after executing that code.

casper

Thank you. Here is what I ented:

skyguy@skyguy-desktop:-$ cd /media
skyguy@skyguy-desktop:/media$ sudo mkdir win_d win_g win_h
Password:
skyguy@skyguy-desktop:/media$ sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/hdb1 /media/win_d
skyguy@skyguy-desktop:/media$ sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/hdb5 /media/win_g
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superbtock on /dev/hdb5,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg I tail or so
skyguy@skyguy-desktop:/media$ sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/hdb6 /media/win_h

There was an error with the hdb5...

When I checked the folders, win_g was empty. I wasn't able to open the win_d and win_h folders because said I don't have permission. (what??? I'm the only one on this computer...)

[ImNeat]

Because you created the directory as root, only root has permissions to read/write/execute it.

You can change the directory permissions with chmod.

cd /media
sudo chmod 777 win_d
sudo chmod 777 win_g
sudo chmod 777 win_h

"777" allows everyone read, write and execute access to the directory.
You can look up other values and replace 777 with whatever you want.