[Discuss] gparted problems

[Adam Parkin]

R. McFarlane wrote:
>         The second attempt produced the same results. On my third 
> attempt I realized what had happened. For some reason gparted labels 
> FAT32 partitions as 83. Checking my other FAT32 partitions they are 
> marked as 0B. Not sure why it does this. Partition Magic 8 creates FAT32 
> partitions as 0C when they are a primary partition and 0B when they are 
> a logical partition.
>         In addition to this, I am a little wary about "flipping the 
> bits" to 0C for fear that this renders the partition unbootable.

If you have the partition backed up, can't you try just "flipping the 
bits" and see if it works?  Then if it doesn't just restore the backup. 
  Seems to me you'd be no worse off than you are now.  However, of 
course the usual "try at your own risk" disclaimer applies. =;->

I can't remember if it was gparted I was using or not, but I do recall 
an issue with an open-source partition cloning tool that required the 
partition to restore to to be the exact same size as the partition you 
backed up.  That is, if you cloned a 15GB partition, you have to restore 
it as a 15GB partition.  As I said though, I cannot recall if that was 
gparted or not, but it might be something to look into.  I don't see how 
that would cause gparted to restore a FAT32 partition as a Linux 
partition though.

>         The new drive is a 250GB IDE drive and I was trying to 
> consolidate all the data from my (then full) 80GB IDE drive. To add 
> insult to injury, the only windows partition I have in use is a win2k 
> sp4 partition (this is the one mis-marked) and all attempts to install 
> win2k sp4 onto the empty free space below the 1024 boundary on the new 
> 250GB IDE drive, fails. Every single time. I have yet to find any info 
> on the internet on how to get win2k sp4 installed on a meager 15GB 
> partition on the new 250GB IDE drive.

Hmm, I'm a bit curious as to why the Win2k installer would be failing, 
my WinXP (SP2) directory is well under 15GB, and I would think that 
Win2k would require less space than XP.

Aside from this, why is it you're using FAT32 for a primary Windows 
partition?  I can understand having a secondary FAT32 partition for 
swapping files back and forth between Windows and Linux if you need to 
dual-boot, but FAT32 is a horrible file system to use for your primary 
partition (if for no other reason than it's inefficient at using space 
on large drives).

HTH,
-- 
Adam Parkin
E-mail: pzelnip at telus.net
--------------------------
Children aren't happy without something to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.
	-- Ogden Nash