Can you mix NTFS & FAT32 on a dual boot?

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Ford Prefect
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Joined: Jun 17 2001

Hi Folks,
I have a dual boot system with Win98SE for general stuff and a second partition recently upgraded to WinXP Pro for video editing.
I've always used Partition Magic (V 8.1) for partitioning until now because Win98 was a bit lacking in that department.
Obviously all the files I use in my Win98 system are FAT32 but I recently bought a 250GB HDD (I knew a big project was coming up and I didn't have space in my system for all the footage).
I formatted the new drive into a 160GB FAT32 partition and an 80GB NTFS partition.
This was because I had already collected loads of footage using Win98 and it was therefore all split into 4GB chunks, but I thought I'd have NTFS for the rest so I could download whole tapes as one file.
Anyway, all worked surprisingly well until one day after using Win98 I rebooted into WinXP only to find that my 80Gb NTFS disc didn't show in explorer. A quick look in Partition Magic and disc manager showed it to be "unallocated" free space!!!!!
What happened to my three hours of video I loaded the day before?
Now I'm not prone to panic so I thought carefully through what I had done.
I formatted the disc in PM 8.1 on my Win98 system, maybe that's the problem. I reformatted on WinXP pro and reloaded, all ok so far.
But after checking my e-mails etc. this morning on Win98, I rebooted to Win XP and the b****Y drive has disappeared again!!!
So what's all this stuff about WinXP and NTFS being more reliable?
None of my hard drives has ever failed on Win98 let alone b****y disappeared!
The trouble is that if they don't even appear, you can't try any fancy recovery on them, can you?
Anyway, just before I go back to being all FAT32 I thought I'd ask this forum for advice.
Maybe it's not possible to mix?
Maybe PMagic can't handle 250GB?
Maybe I'm doing something else wrong?
Any ideas or solutions please?
Best Regards.

System: Dell Dimension, 1.4GHz, 512MB RAM, 120GB dual boot system drive, 120, 160, and 250GB video drives.

harlequin
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Joined: Aug 16 2000

1. ntfs is more stable , but harder to fix when it goes wrong.
2. a disappearing drive , and i pray it's not a maxtor , may be symptomatic of critical drive failure.
3. 160GB under win98 , MAY , be the problem.
4. fire up pm8.1 under xp and then see if you can 'undelete' the missing partition.
5. check dell's website to see if the bios can understand not only 250GB hard drives , BUT , also 48bit LBA.

Gary MacKenzie

sepulce@hotmail.com ( an account only used for forum messages )

Thinkserver TS140 , 750ti Graphics card  & LG 27" uws led backlight , Edius 8

Humax Foxsat HD Pvr / Humax Fox T2 dvbt

Ford Prefect
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Joined: Jun 17 2001

Hi Gary,
It's a Seagate 250GB HDD and I've only just put it in my PC. I was using it for about a month on firewire as an external backup with no probs.
I've tried the "undelete" in PM but it only works if you've just done it or the operation is pending.
I have all four HDDs on a Promise Ultra PCI card and on booting up, the Dell/Promise BIOS has no problems recognising all the drives with their correct size and is set to LBA.
Also I've had a 160GB drive in my Win98SE syatem for about a year now so no problems on that front.
Any more suggestions please?
Regards.
P.S. If I format in WinXP then stay there it's no problem, any partition any size up to max.
It's only when I go back to Win98 (where the drives don't appear, by the way, because I assume it doesn't "see" NTFS) and then return to XP that I get the problem.
I've tried Partition Magic support but they (Powerquest) have been taken over by Symantec and they will only support me if I buy their new partitioning product. Guess what it's called?
Would you believe Partition Magic??

harlequin
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Joined: Aug 16 2000

1. i can't see how win98se can do anything to ntfs drives , but , if win98 doesn't recognise the partition properly , ( i.e too large or unable to handle 48bit lba ) then it may damage the ntfs partition at low level
2. i have undeleted a partition that just disappeared for no reason using partition magic.
3. firewire controller does all the translation work , so o/s doesn't see the partitions the same way ( or at least thats how i understand the way the bridge chips work )

Gary MacKenzie

sepulce@hotmail.com ( an account only used for forum messages )

Thinkserver TS140 , 750ti Graphics card  & LG 27" uws led backlight , Edius 8

Humax Foxsat HD Pvr / Humax Fox T2 dvbt

TerryMaher
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Joined: Aug 24 2004
Dual Boot Configuration
Ford Prefect wrote:
Anyway, all worked surprisingly well until one day after using Win98 I rebooted into WinXP only to find that my 80Gb NTFS disc didn't show in explorer.

If you have a multi-boot system, I would have thought that the XP operating system was installed on the 80GB NTFS partition (and Win98 on the FAT32 partition)

On that basis, what exactly do you see in Windows Explorer (drive wise) when you re-boot into XP?

Apologies if I'm reading this totally wrong, or am missing something obvious

Terry

Ford Prefect
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Joined: Jun 17 2001

Hi Terry,
I used the XP upgrade wizard to create my XP system and it created it on the same (first) drive as my Win98SE system but in a new partition after it on the same HDD (FAT32).
My problem disc is a new HDD for video, a 250GB split 160/80.
Regards.

harlequin
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Joined: Aug 16 2000

found what i was looking for

windows 98se cannot access a drive larger than 137GB in size.

that is why when you go back to the drive from win98se to xp , the drive is a little ******

Even Windows 2000 (prior to SP3) is unable to use any space on an HDD beyond the 137-GB boundary; until you apply the SP3 (or later) update to it! This means that you will not be able to install an early Win 2000 OS on such drives using the original install CD; unless you create an initially smaller partition underneath that 137-GB boundary!

Gary MacKenzie

sepulce@hotmail.com ( an account only used for forum messages )

Thinkserver TS140 , 750ti Graphics card  & LG 27" uws led backlight , Edius 8

Humax Foxsat HD Pvr / Humax Fox T2 dvbt

Ford Prefect
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Joined: Jun 17 2001

Hi Gary,
Thanks for all the effort but all my drives are connected using a "Promise Ultra TX100" PCI card and with the correct BIOS this solves the problem of the 137GB normal limit and as I said, I've been using a 160GB drive attached to this card for over 12 months now with no problems. It also recognises the 250Gb drive (stated as 232GB) without a problem.
However, I have now discovered that Partition Magic has a limit of 200GB for a single partition, so that would stop me making a 250GB volume but should be ok for a 160/80 split. I'm going to copy all my video, or at least the stuff on the 160 section to other drives then I'll be able to investigate/experiment with impunity.
Regards.

Ford Prefect
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Joined: Jun 17 2001

Hi Folks,
I might be clutching at straws now but is anybody using Partition Magic (the Powerquest Version) on WinXP?
The reason I ask is that I remember downloading an update to v8.1 for Win9X (ages ago) and I believe there was also an 8.1 for win2k/xp but I don't have it. So.....it might be that my PM on XP is v8.0 (straight load from the Powerquest CD) and the one on Win98SE is v8.1.
Now I can't remember why the 8.1 update came out but I wouldn't mind betting it was something to do with disc sizes. Anybody got it please??
Regards.

Alan Craven
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Joined: Jan 26 2001

I use PM8 quite happily with XP2, I have never heard of any update patches for this, and lost interest when Symantec bought Powerquest.

After a quick check on Google (generally quicker than posting a query!), there is an 8.01 patch avilable here

http://www.click-now.net/html/PartitionMagic.htm

Ford Prefect
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Joined: Jun 17 2001

Hi Alan,
Thanks for the update link. The 8.1 patch is the same one I have already so the patch is not OS dependent.
Anyway, I copied all my stuff onto other drives then reformatted on Win 98 into a 160/80 split using FAT32. All worked ok and I transferred a couple of video files back and forth to prove it.
Then rebooted to XP2 and found a strange new effect. The 160/80 split was showing up in Disk Mgr and PM as a split of 131/2048GBs ....yes 2 terabits for the 80G section.
I tried repartitioning the top section but it said "no partitions can be created here"....doh!!
It was late last night and I was getting tired (and fed up!) so I went to XP2 and did a low-level format in Disk Manager. It took ages, but it successfully created (or so it said) one NTFS 238GB partition.
This morning I repartitioned back to 160/80 but this time both NTFS and it seemed ok.
I did some transfer testing with a couple of big (13GB) video files, all ok.
Now the crunch, I rebooted to Win 98, all ok and the new partitions don't show in My Computer (correct, as expected). They do show in PM but now they show as NTFS instead of being free space.
So it seems there was some kind of addressing problem which a low-level format has fixed.
So the answer seems to be YES you can mix NTFS and FAT32 in a dual boot.
However, I'll not be fully convinced until next week after a sh**-load of editing I now have to catch up with.
Many thanks for all those who helped.
Best Regards.

Ford Prefect
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Joined: Jun 17 2001

Hi Folks,
Spoke too soon!!!!!
Just rebooted into XP2 and found the first partition on my 250g has disappeared again.
This time PM shows the first partition as unformatted and the second as NTFS OK, but when I try to open the second partition, which is says contains 30Gb of data, the disc is empty.
I'm mortified. Where do I go from here?
Regards.

TerryMaher
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Joined: Aug 24 2004
Ford Prefect wrote:
Thanks for all the effort but all my drives are connected using a "Promise Ultra TX100" PCI card and with the correct BIOS this solves the problem of the 137GB normal limit and as I said, I've been using a 160GB drive attached to this card for over 12 months now with no problems. It also recognises the 250Gb drive (stated as 232GB) without a problem.
Regards.

Although you say that everything is OK (and I'm sure it probably is), I don't know whether there is anything of interest in the attached link that perhaps you haven't thought of, although you probably know it all already !!!

I must confess I don't understand much of it myself yet, but I'm learning new things all the time !!!

http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa/sb/cs-009297.htm

Alan Craven
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Joined: Jan 26 2001

With earlier versions of Windows (before XP with SP2, or 2k with SP3), you have to do a registry modification to get the OS to see drives larger than 137GB. I do not know whether W98 can see large drives at all. That may be the source of your problem. Terry's link is relevant to this.

Alternatively, the BIOS has to be cable of seeing large drives. I made the following notes at the time:

Enabling support for drives greater than 137Gb

WARNING: This tip is for Windows XP SP1 and Windows 2000 SP3 only and should not be implemented on a system that does not contain a physical drive larger than 137Gb and a BIOS that doesn't support 48-bit LBA addressing!

To enable 48-bit LBA support:
• Use a registry editing tool to navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters
• Insert a value with the following details:
Data Type: DWORD
Value Name: EnableBigLba
Value: 1
• Restart the computer for the changes to take effect.

Registry Settings Summary

Key Name HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters
Value Name EnableBigLba
Value Type REG_DWORD
Value Data 0x00000001
Please note: All numeric values are shown in decimal notation.

I have a small regfile which does this for you.

Ford Prefect
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Joined: Jun 17 2001

Hi Guys,
Thanks very much for the continued support.
I've looked at the links, thanks, and in fact spent all morning reading Microsoft articles about LBS, SP1 etc. Why are they so difficult to read? I've also spent quite a time on the manufacturer's site (Seagate) and found a wealth of info, tools, downloads etc.
Now we all know (or are convinced) that this is some kind of 48bit LBA problem BUT, when I boot up my PC, during the boot, (So before even selecting any version of Windows) the BIOS detects my Promise Ultra PCI card and then detects the discs as follows:
Seagate ST3120 shows as Disc 0 LBA 111GB
West Dig WD120 shows as Disc 1 LBA 111GB
Seagate ST3160 shows as Disc 2 LBA 149GB and
Seagate ST3250 shows as Disc 3 LBA 232GB
So the BIOS has no problems at this point, and as I said before, if I now boot into Win98SE, it has no problems with the first three drives including the Seagate 160 (which is obviosly formatted as FAT32) and doesn't "see" the last drive because it's formatted as NTFS. So all the above would indicate that it's not a BIOS LBA problem at all?
It's only when I go to XP I get the problems.
Remember I'm on WinXP Professional (SP2) and I don't know all the differences between Pro and Home versions but one of them is that you can have dual boots on the same drive because XP pro is cleverer with the stuff it writes to the discs MBR.
Maybe that's the problem, it's too clever for itself with a dual boot on the same drive and an ATA controller card?
The only other thing I can think of is that Gary was nearer the mark in his first post when he said "Disappearing drives .........could be symptomatic of a catastrphic failure..."
Regards.
P.S. I've just sent all the same info to Seagate Support.

getlostdave
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Joined: Feb 14 2003

Do you partition the drive with PM under XP or Win98?

The issue here might be, that the on card BIOS is inherently 16bit, and will be used by windows 98, however Windows XP will bypass the On card bios using its own 32bit code.

This would indicate some misunderstanding of the drive geometry by one or the other access methods, and my initial guess would be the software drivers being used by Windows XP.

If I am correct, I would suggest that you may want to try to find some updated XP drivers for your Pinnacle card? And also I would say that the 48LBA issue could still be a problem, because while I believe that your Card will correctly use it's bios under win98, this might not be the case under WinXP.

Just a guess mind you.

Dave

Ford Prefect
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Joined: Jun 17 2001

Hi Dave,
Thanks very much for your post.
Intelligent guessing.
I think you might have hit your head on the nail!
Re PM in 98 and XP, I've tried both and it seems to work better in 98 so, as you suggest, is there a problem with the controller card BIOS?
Well, I had already checked the BIOS was ok for 48bit LBA and on the Promise Download site it states that this is not OS specific.
However, it also says that you must ensure the windows driver for the controller card is later than a certain MS version.
So I checked and both my W98 and XP drivers (though different) are both up to date.
But I'm sure you are on the right track, it's got to be some kind of compatibility or incompatibility of my various bits of h/w and s/w.
I'll let you know what Seagate come up with.
Regards.

Ford Prefect
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Joined: Jun 17 2001

Hi Folks,
Got a reply from Seagate this morning.
They suggested downloading their own Seagate Disc Wizard which runs from a floppy.
Did what they said. It initialised the disc as FAT32 but said it would limit the size to 137 Gb as it did not detect LBA support on the mobo. However, it said, if this is provided by a controller card which doesn't load until Windows loads, just repartition or add partitions to the full size.
Booted into W98, drive came up as 131GB FAT32. Opened Partition Magic, rest of drive present as "unallocated". Deleted 131 partition and created 2x 120GB FAT32's.
Rebooted into XP all present and correct.
I then spent about 30mins booting and rebooting in and out of both systems, moving a few files each time.
Everything is OK. Both systems and PMagic in both systems see both partitions ok.
Been loading and editing in XP ok for last 2 hours.
Now the only thing I haven't tried is creating the partitions as NTFS which was one of the original reasons for going to XP to handle files of 12GB, i.e. a whole tape at a time.
I think I'll finish this large project first before I tempt fate again.
Regards and Thanks.
P.S. Just so we can all sleep easy, I'm backing up all my edited stuff to a known good drive for safety!!