Windows 98 to Linux 9.0 and back again

[misterfido 0]

Alright, here's the deal. I'm new to Linux, been hearing a lot of good things about it, so I decided to download the free version of it over several days and set it up. I like to think that I'm very savvy with computers, but obviously not.

 

I have two harddrives, a 13 gig and a 20 gig, the 20 being my secondary, the 13 being my primary with Windows 98 SE on it. I installed Linux 9.0 off the CDs I burned onto my secondary drive. Here comes the problem. During install, well actually at the very beginning of it, it told me it was 'formatting filing system' or something along those lines. I, of course, freaked out, knowing that the word 'formatting' was something I never want to see without expecting it. I shut off the computer. I think I may have tried to go into my C: drive, and it wouldn't start Windows and/or it wouldn't even find an OS to boot up, even DOS. In any case, I tried to finish installing Linux onto my second hard drive, thinking it had just removed the connections to Windows, and I just had to install Linux, burn myself a copy of my stored Windows CD, and reinstall Windows.

 

Its not working out that way.

 

I tried doing the reinstallation immedietly, to no avail. Even making a boot disk wouldn't work by plugging in an old hard drive with W98SE. So, I went into Linux, and browsed the web, searching for data on whats wrong.

 

Now, I know its something to do with the FAT. Don't know what my old FAT used to be, but since its a 13gig, I'm assuming it [was] FAT32. I've tried everything to the best of my ability, which isn't much since I'm completely unfamiliar in Linux. I plugged in both my old Windows hard drive and my 13 gig, which didn't work, Windows refused to see the hard drive. I have some confidence in recovery, though, because when I did these commands (which I got out of these forums) in the terminal:

 

mkdir /mnt/win32

mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/win32

 

I could see the directories in my old hard drive, I could even see all of the files in my root folder of C:>. Autoexec.bat, logs, scandisk files, the whole deal. I could see my folders. HOWEVER. Linux registered most of the folders as empty, with one (or more, I don't recall seeing them, and I think I'd remember that) exception: Win98, not the OS folder, but the CD folder.

 

For those of you who have stuck with my long message, I thank you dearly. Can any of you brilliant Linux peoples tell me how the hell I can recover my stuff? I don't need to actually have Windows up and running again on that hard drive, I can just format it and reinstall Windows. But I got precious stuffs there. Digital pictures, websites, flash files, homework. Gigabytes of patches, utilities, and CDs that I no longer have. You know the deal.

 

I've read a lot about fdisk, how that might work. And stuff about partitian magic in Windows (though I've glanced at that, it won't work for me, cause still Windows refuses to acknowledge my hard drive). But I fear fdisk, because I fear losing the data. You guys know how that is.

 

Anyways, thanks.

 

Misterfido

 

"Toys, toys, bringing the joys,

To all the young girls who still don't have boys."

-Misterfido

[Dapper Dan 0]

First of all, were you installing Red Hat 9 or Mandrake 9 or what? There is no Linux 9. If you're seeing your Windows files, then there is a good chance that you can recover all of them without problem. It sounds to me like you might have a bootloader problem. When you boot up does a window come up giving you a choice to go to Windows?

 

If it were me, I'd burn my valuable Windows files to cd-r from Linux, then reinstall Windows first, then reinstall Linux, but, hey that's me...

 

If you are not concerned about having Windows 98 anymore, then you can just leave all of your files in that fat partition, and open them with Linux applications.

 

Someone else here may have a better answer for you. If they do, I hope they will take the time to help.

[misterfido 0]

Ahh, see, I'm extremely new to Linux. Its Redhat. Whatever ;( . Anyways, thanks for your help, but the rest of you folks keep on replyin'! Anyways, yeah, I get a boot loader, but it only has Linux in it. I remember it giving me the option of additional booting locations during my initial install but, of course, during the inital install I fragged my computer, didn't get it the second time.

[Dapper Dan 0]

Check around in those Windows folders and see if everything is there. If all of it is, then you should be in good shape, whichever way you should decide to proceed.

[misterfido 0]

I cannot see the files in the folders, except for my windows CD directory. That is the problem, otherwise I would just rip all the stuff to a CD, and poke around until I fixed the originals. Or just rip it all to a CD, and remake. But in any case, theres the problem, I don't see the files in the folders to rip them out.

[Dapper Dan 0]

You are going to /mnt/windows or some such designation in /mnt to see into your Windows partition? The only thing you are seeing is a windows folder in there? Your files are not in that folder?

[misterfido 0]

I mount hda1 to a folder in the /mnt/ directory, under win32. I go to /mnt/, i see the mounted cdrom and win32. I go to win32. I see essentially what I would see in Windows if i went to the root directory of the C:. I see files. I see folders. Except, in Linux, each folder has a sublabel, telling how many files and/or folders are in each folder. I see 0 Files. 0 files. 0 Files. 0 files. 101 Files. 0 Files. 0 Files. Autoexec.bat. Autoexec.~. You get the idea.

 

That 101 files is my directory I use for installing/burning copies of Windows 98 SE. Its the ONLY directory I can go into and find files. No other directory has files or folders.

 

That was the long way of explainign it. The short way is "Yes, I'm mounting the Windows partition. Because, as far as I can tell, its the only partition on that drive. I could be wrong though."

[Dapper Dan 0]

misterfido, I hate to tell you what I think you probably already know. I think your Windows is hosed. I know that's very bad news for you right now, but I lost a lot of stuff on my Windows partition awhile back myself. If it's any consolation, I cannot now remember what I lost or why I thought any of it was important. If you want to continue on now with Linux, I'll help out if I can. Sorry.

[Graham 0]

Mister Fido I can sympathize, I went through almost the exact same experience.

 

I had windows 98 on my C drive and was trying to install Mandrake 9.0 on my D: drive.

 

It had started to install on the D: leaving my C drive alone.

 

But the Linux installer kept rebooting halfway thru over and over.

 

So after 17 attempts I gave up and went to boot up my Windows and could not.

 

I tried boot tools like the windows start up rescue floppy disk I had but nothing I tried worked. So I thought I would just re-install windows and all my old files would be there.

 

wrong..... ouch

 

I had 95% of my files backed up on CD-R but it now takes me about 8 hours to reinstall my programs and data these days (I like to reformat once a year)

 

Careful about reinstalling Windows ... Seek out some expert where ever you physically reside. Don't make any rash short-tempered moves like I did.

 

I think Linux knocked out my Windows boot loader.

 

The whole experience hasn't put me off Linux ....I still think it is a great thing to pursue and support.

 

I'm just going to be very careful next time I attempt this.

 

good luck

 

Graham

 

I just had one bad experience.

[Dapper Dan 0]

Mandrake comes with a really good partitioning tool which makes it very easy to resize fat and ntfs partitions to make room for your Linux install. If installing RH 9 on an a box that already has Windows, I first use Partition magic 8 from Windows to resize Windows and make an empty space for Linux. Then, when you run the RH 9 install, it finds the blank space and installs your Linux partitions to that, leaving the Windows partitions alone. I'm not even sure you can resize with the RH 9 partitioning tool. Every time I ever tried it with RH 8 and 9, it always wants to write over Windows. Luckily I stopped at that point, but it's really easy to assume it will leave Windows alone.

With ALL OS installs, always back up your data before doing anything.