Installed Windows XP on a Linux machine

[BjoernHoffmann]

Hi all!

I have a question for you guys

I just recently got this machine with Linux installed, more precisely OpenSuSe (10.2 I think). I'm not really very fond of any distribution of Linux; it was actually the first time I ever tried it.

Well, to get to the point, after having used OpenSuSe for some time, I decided I wanted to do a dual boot. Somehow, I thought I was smart enough to do that, but obviously not.
When I booted from my Windows XP and wanted to install it, I saw 4 partitions.

• A FAT32 partition on approximately 8 gb (Around 7,8 gb free)
• An unknown partition of approximately 5 gb (all 5 gb free)
• Another unknown partition of approximately 1,5 gb (all 1,5 gb free)
• And another unknown partition of approximately 4 gb (all 4 gb free)

Having no clue about filesystems, but that Linux can run on FAT32, I deleted all the small partitions, except the biggest one with FAT32, to make one large NTFS partition for my Windows XP.

Now when I boot Windows XP, and browse the C: drive, I see nothing at all. Except of a few hundred mb of "something" that I can't see.

So I wanted to know if there is anyway I might be able to get atleast some of my files back, as some of them were of importance to me?
Or if anyone have some answers to what happened?

Thanks in advance (:

Bjoern

[netstrider]

Linux can run on FAT but it is recommended to use ext2/3. It might be that some of the other partitions were *extended* partitions. The reason you can't see anything on Windows is most probably because the files are hidden.

Can you boot into Linux, I assume Windows overwrote your MBR (Master Boot Record) not giving you the option to boot Linux.

[bigtomrodney]

I deleted all the small partitions, except the biggest one with FAT32, to make one large NTFS partition for my Windows XP

Those smaller partitions were your Linux installation. The only hope for recovery now is some hard disk interogation tool. I don't know of any free ones (not to say they don't exist) but there are many commercial software applications that can at least attempt recovery. Bear in mind though that recovery is not guaranteed.

[Juan Pablo]

Linux can run on FAT but it is recommended to use ext2/3. It might be that some of the other partitions were *extended* partitions. The reason you can't see anything on Windows is most probably because the files are hidden.

No, it can't, Linux and most Unix-like OSes need support for file permissions and FAT32 doesn't support this.

To answer the original question
As I read in your post, you deleted SuSE completely, you can use something like testdisk to try and recover your Linux installation but if you didn't have anything important there, my advice is to wipe everything, install Windows first and then SuSE. It will save you a lot of hassles

TestDisk - CGSecurity

[netstrider]

No, it can't, Linux and most Unix-like OSes need support for file permissions and FAT32 doesn't support this.

Hmm, my bad. I assumed instead of doing research, so when using a USB-bootable it formats your USB to ext?

[BjoernHoffmann]

Thanks alot for your responds (:

It was as I thought, my SuSE installation is gone.

I did have some files of importance, so I will try your advice with testdisk and hope for the best.

And after that I will wipe everything and start over. I like to do the installation myself (:

[bigtomrodney]

Hmm, my bad. I assumed instead of doing research, so when using a USB-bootable it formats your USB to ext?

Many live USB distros get around this by not running directly from the FAT32 partition but rather having the boot files on the disk and running in a virtual overlay file system such as ovlfs or unionfs. So the actual filesystem is in RAM.

[netstrider]

Many live USB distros get around this by not running directly from the FAT32 partition but rather having the boot files on the disk and running in a virtual overlay file system such as ovlfs or unionfs. So the actual filesystem is in RAM.

I see, thanks. I learn something new everyday