I have been using Linux for more than 4 years since my first year in the University, and I have been using dual boot of Linux and Windows OS since then. I partitioned my C Drive using Parrition Magic 7.0 to install both OS. But from last year, my hard disk kept running out of space, and I haven’t used Linux at home since I started working as PHP programmer one year ago. So I decided to remove my Linux partition to gain some space for Windows.
However, I have recently decided to reinstall the latest Fedora Core 5 into my system, because I wanted to learn more about Linux Administration, and I have very limited knowledge in this area. The problem is that the Partition Magic seems unable to recognise my C drive partition anymore. It flagged an 108 error and saying that the drive’s boundary doesn’t fall into the expected area, so Partition Magic is unable to to any magic to this drive.
Fair enough, I think can use Fedora Core 5 to do partition for me. I insert the DVD into the drive and boot from it. When I was trying to do the partition of my C drive, the Fedora Core seems unable to create the swap partition for my trouble drive. I have no idea why. So I gave up, go back to Windows and start to google any solutions.
I have visited so many websites but all with very little solution and nothing worked. Upto yesterday, I found one solution asking me to create a Partition Magic Rescue Disk, and boot from it, and then I can do some magic from there. Haha, it worked, after weeks looking for solutions. The following was what I did:
[ul]
[li]Prepare two floppy disks[/li]
[li]Go to “Start > All Programs > Partition Magic 7.0 > Create Rescue Disk” and follow the on-screen instructions[/li]
[li]Insert first floppy disk, reboot your computer (remember to change the boot order to Floopy Drive to No. 1), After booting, screen will ask you to enter the second floppy disk, do so[/li]
[li]After a while, a GUI Partition Magic will load up, you should see that your drive is still appearing as “bad”. Don’t worry, click on the “Exit” button at the right bottom, you will now exit to the DOS window, with A:\\> at the prompt[/li]
[li]From the command line, enter “PQMAGIC /IPE”. And again, a GUI Partition Magic will load up. This time, you should clearly see your Hard Disk’s format, it is not showing “bad” as before. Now you can do any magic you want. What you need to do now is to resize your drive down a bit, say 10MB, apply the change, and then resize the drive back to it original size, then apply change again, wait for the operation to finish, then restart your computer (remove floppy disk first, or change the boot order). Now if you open Partition Magic, it should all worked.[/li]
[/ul]
