anlag
August 8th, 2008, 09:33 PM
I've run into a fair bit of problems this evening, attempting to install Windows XP onto a laptop hard drive already containing Ubuntu 8.04. Initially, the hard drive had the following partitions:
(empty, primary, intended for Win)
/boot (primary)
swap (primary)
/ (logical)
/home (logical)
The Ubuntu installation was done the other day for testing purposes. As it seemed to work well, I proceeded with trying to intall Windows into the empty, unpartitioned space. Having first had to make a change in my BIOS (switch from ACHI to 'Compatibility' mode) to allow the Windows setup to find the hard drive at all, I could see from within it the four existing partitions and the empty space of 40 GB I had left for this purpose.
The next problem was, I realized, that when the Windows XP setup utility sees there's already four partitions, it refuses to continue saying no more can be created. Here's where I took a bit of a chance, and removed the swap partition, thinking this would allow Windows to install, and that I could always re-create it using GParted from the Live CD afterwards.
Well, it worked as far as the Windows installation is concerned. It installed fine, although a bunch of hardware wasn't installed as it couldn't find appropriate drivers... no matter, I can sort that. Meant to do so by going into Ubuntu, but as I now boot using the Live CD to both reinstate the GRUB loader, and to recreate the swap partition, I find that GParted reports the ENTIRE drive as 186 GB of unallocated space! No Windows partition, none of the three Linux partitions that should still be there, and no 2 final gigs of space that had been the swap. Nada.
Thinking perhaps Ubuntu needed the ACHI mode in BIOS, I rebooted and changed that back, but no luck.
What's going on? I know for sure that when Windows formatted the area it was given, it said that it was formatting 40 GB on a 186 GB drive, indicating only that particular piece was formatted and not the entire drive. This makes me think the Linux partitions are still there, only GParted doesn't see them for some reason. Might my removing the swap partition have caused this? Can't think how.
Not about to panic just yet but let's just say while I should have backups of most things (not sure though!) I'll NOT be best pleased if it's all gone.
Any and all advice very gratefully received! Thanks in advance.
//edit to add, from trying to sort the GRUB loader using the Live CD, I also can't do it.
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
Error 15: File not found
(empty, primary, intended for Win)
/boot (primary)
swap (primary)
/ (logical)
/home (logical)
The Ubuntu installation was done the other day for testing purposes. As it seemed to work well, I proceeded with trying to intall Windows into the empty, unpartitioned space. Having first had to make a change in my BIOS (switch from ACHI to 'Compatibility' mode) to allow the Windows setup to find the hard drive at all, I could see from within it the four existing partitions and the empty space of 40 GB I had left for this purpose.
The next problem was, I realized, that when the Windows XP setup utility sees there's already four partitions, it refuses to continue saying no more can be created. Here's where I took a bit of a chance, and removed the swap partition, thinking this would allow Windows to install, and that I could always re-create it using GParted from the Live CD afterwards.
Well, it worked as far as the Windows installation is concerned. It installed fine, although a bunch of hardware wasn't installed as it couldn't find appropriate drivers... no matter, I can sort that. Meant to do so by going into Ubuntu, but as I now boot using the Live CD to both reinstate the GRUB loader, and to recreate the swap partition, I find that GParted reports the ENTIRE drive as 186 GB of unallocated space! No Windows partition, none of the three Linux partitions that should still be there, and no 2 final gigs of space that had been the swap. Nada.
Thinking perhaps Ubuntu needed the ACHI mode in BIOS, I rebooted and changed that back, but no luck.
What's going on? I know for sure that when Windows formatted the area it was given, it said that it was formatting 40 GB on a 186 GB drive, indicating only that particular piece was formatted and not the entire drive. This makes me think the Linux partitions are still there, only GParted doesn't see them for some reason. Might my removing the swap partition have caused this? Can't think how.
Not about to panic just yet but let's just say while I should have backups of most things (not sure though!) I'll NOT be best pleased if it's all gone.
Any and all advice very gratefully received! Thanks in advance.
//edit to add, from trying to sort the GRUB loader using the Live CD, I also can't do it.
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
Error 15: File not found