Running in safe mode will slow your disk access down a lot. Run defrag from
within windows and it will be much quicker. It might even cure your problem.
In safe mode windows is not very smart! If you need to use windows,
consider going to windows ME, its much quicker, and seems to have far less
problems.
Regards, Rod
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike & Tracy Holt" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, October 23, 2000 2:36 AM
Subject: RE: [newbie] Windows 98 Defrag and Linux Partitions
> Ok, a few comments here...
>
> >Clicked OK to a few things and it comes to the partitioning tool.
> >I resized my 20 gig windows partition down to around 13 to 15 gigs, and
> >clicked "Auto Allocate" and it automatically created 4 partitions.( swap,
> >root, usr, home, or whatever order it was).
>
> First, I never let Linux play with my Windows partitions. When it comes
to
> moving things around, I either decide before loading anything to the disk
> how I'm going to slice it up or I use Partition Magic. This may seem
> unrelated, but I wonder if Mandrake is trying to make an extended
partition
> in which to enclose both Windows and Linux - that could affect your mbr.
>
> >After everything is working fine, if I go right into safe mode and load
up
> >defrag and let it run, I end up with an unbootable machine since grub
can't
> >read the linux partition.
>
> Why are you going into 'safe-mode' to run defrag? 'Safe-mode' on Windows
> machines is only for repairing your system. An example would be if you
> installed new software or drivers that renders your machine unbootable,
you
> would go into 'safe-mode' and thus only the minimal drivers necessary to
run
> your machine would be loaded and you could uninstall whatever had caused
the
> problem. System utilities such as Scandisk and defrag can / should be run
> from 'normal-mode' (turn off your screen savers and the junk in your
system
> tray).
>
>
> <<I'm just reading another of your posts so I'll just splice it in here>>
>
> >Partition table before defrag:
>
> >Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 2491 cylinders
> >Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes
>
> > Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> >/dev/hda1 * 1 1657 13309821 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
> >/dev/hda2 1658 2491 6699105 5 Extended
> >/dev/hda5 1658 1688 248976 82 Linux swap
> >/dev/hda6 1689 1726 305203+ 83 Linux
> >/dev/hda7 1727 2081 2851506 83 Linux
> >/dev/hda8 2082 2491 3293293+ 83 Linux
>
> >During the defrag, there were no screen savers enabled, I was in safe
mode,
> >and no other programs but defrag were loaded at the time and I let defrag
> do
> >its stuff overnight, then when I woke up, it said it was done and asked
if
> I
> >wanted to exit it, and I said yes, and then I rebooted hoping to go back
to
> >normal mode and only shown a grub prompt.
>
> >The partition table after a defrag ends up wiping out hda7, moving hda8's
> >start point to hda6's start point and thus making overlapping partitions.
> >(I checked that by typing rescue on the boot of the linux-mandrake CD and
> >typing "fdisk -l")
>
> I think this may confirm my previous thoughts; you say that you're booting
> to safe-mode, going to bed and letting it do it's work. Could it be that
> since you used a non-windows utility to move your windows partition around
> without really telling windows what was going on, then you boot to
safe-mode
> to run defrag (safe-mode by it's very nature being for repairs), maybe
> windows is trying to 'fix' what it perceives to be a damaged partition
> table? Remember, changing your partition table on your active system
> partition is different than just resizing an extended partition, and even
> doing that non-destructively is quite a feat. Try either using Partition
> Magic from Win98 to do your partitioning BEFORE installing Mandrake, then
> just allocate the unused space - or if you're not worried about losing
> Win98, wipe the whole drive with fdisk and slice the drive up however you
> intend, then install Win98 to the partition you intend and Linux to it's
> partition. However you do it, don't let the linux installer touch your
> existing partition table, only let it play with the un-allocated (blank)
> space.
>
> >If a problem with the partition table happens, how do you get the ability
> to
> >boot back into linux without losing anything even when a restore of the
> >partition table and boot sector couldn't do that? I have no problem
> getting
> >back into windows (brutally with fdisk /mbr) but then I have no way of
> >getting back into my linux (and don't know how in grub) and I simply just
> >wipe out the linux partition and reinstall (partly because I didn't have
> >much important stuff on it at the time anyways).
>
> If the partition table is actually ruined, you will not be able to get in
> without some pretty high tech equipment. If it's just you mbr that's
> broken, your boot disk that you make during installation will get you in.
>
> I hope that's helped some, I can't tell you the exact reasons why (I'm not
a
> computer science major) but I can tell you that this is what I do and it
> works every time.
>
> Mike
>
>
>
>
>
>
