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Cannot access partitions D and E from DOS

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naif

Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2002
I havent started to face this problem recently, but from around 2 years or something. I wish to find a way to fix it now though. Before(around 4 years back) I partitioned my drive as follows:-

Primary Partition C: 9000 MB
Extended Partions D, E: 9000 MB and 9000 MB

later on when I was installing linux I decided to use partition resizer to split up the E drive into half its original size. So now the E drive is some where around 4500 MB but I cannot access these two drivers from Real Dos mode though
it is accessible from MS Dos Mode. And like whenever I boot into Windows in Safe Mode again these two partitions are not available. I even tried to erase and old MBR and replace it with a new one using the command fdisk /mbr, no doubt, I did lose the Lilo boot loader but still this too didnt fix the problem. I tried googling for a solution but couldnt find any. So like is there a solution for this problem?
 
Well, I'm somewhat confused...are you saying that you have (besides the 9GB primary volume) two logical partitions of 4.5GB each contained within a 9GB extended partition? If so, then of course the primary volume would be assigned the letter C:...and the first logical partition would be D:, followed by the last logical partition being E:. Try booting using a Win98/Me bootdisk (containing fdisk.exe), and run fdisk from the A:> prompt. Check to see if fdisk sees both the primary and logical volumes correctly...if it does, then it could be all you need to do is re-format the two logical partitions in order for Windows to recognize them. Also, which OS are you running?
 
No, I have a primary 9 GB primary partition and an extended partition whose size is around 13.5 GB. Within the extended partition I have got two logical partitions namely D and E of the size 9 GB and 4.5 GB respectively. Before the Extended partitions size was 18 GB and the size of D and E were 9 GB each. But after I took away 4.5 GB from the E drive, it now only contains 4.5 GB of space. And after I resized the partition, from then onwards I guess I have been facing myself with this problem. And like whenever I do an fdisk /status, it gives an info about the primary partition only, though it displays the drive to be around 28 GB of size yet shows nothing regarding the extended partition. The operating system I run is Windows 98 Second Edition(Even have linux installed). I cant really afford a format, thats why I am searching for another way to fix this problem. Anyways I have no problems accessing those two partitions in Windows normal mode though I cannot see any sign of them either in real dos mode nor in Windows Safe Mode.
 
I think I'd probably suggest downloading the trial version of Acronis Disk Director Suite 9.0...unfortunately Symantec doesn't offer a trial of PM8, otherwise I would suggest that also. Using the Partition Manager in Acronis, you'll be able to not only see a graphical representation of the partitions...but you'll be able to modify them without losing data (like you would if you're only recourse was to use fdisk to resize a partition for example). You can find the free trial of Acronis here...

http://www.acronis.com/download/diskdirector/
 
You know, thinking about this, you said that you had had used linux and a partition resizer and it could be possible that you somehow messed up the system ID in the partition table It would make sense because MS-DOS can only access volumes that have an ID value of 0x01,0x04,0x05,0x06. The system ID also ID's the extended partition. I think you could also check in fdisk and see if under delete it gives you an option to delete any non-dos volumes, this could indicate that there is an ID problem.

There is a free disk editor called diskprobe that comes with the 2000 resource kit, it will let you read and write to the partition table among other things and you can download it here:http://www.petri.co.il/download_free_reskit_tools.htm

I dont know if this will work on win98

Here is a link that gives a lot of information on editing out the fat32 partition table, offsets, etc.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...rver/reskit/en-us/serverop/part1/sopch01.mspx

Im not sure if this is your problem, not sure I even understand your problem, but it is my guess, and I have a lot of time on my hands right now so its kind of a refresher looking into this stuff, but usually I would just save all the data ,format out a drive if I needed anything done to the partition table.

Of course try all that redduc suggests, he knows much more about this stuff then most and seeing his posts through the years I dont think he misses much.
 
Alright, I will give Disk Director a shot(thanks for recommending it to me redduc900) and turd, I tried what you have asked me to try, but fdisk has no option for deleting any logical drives nor any non-dos partitions. It shows no signs of existence of any such logical drives, displays info only about the extended dos partition, thats all. I will go through the links you have given me, lets see if I find a solution for this problem. If I do, I will give a post asap.
 
Oh man, the file size of DD is 34 MB lol. It will take me atleast 5 days to finish downloading it(I am on dailup) and to my disgrace, the server has no support for resuming downloads :(
 
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