Windows not recognised from live cd I can't partition HD.

[kelean]

I have win2000 pro and I want to make it dual boot with mint. When I try to install mint it does see my windows install. The only options I have are to use the entire hard drive or partition manually. I try to partition manually and it has my NTFS partition but I cannot make any changes to it. I have a yellow triangle showing. I check the information and it says the drive has errors and I need to run chkdsk /f /r. I tried that but it will not run with the /f option. I run chkdsk /p and it saaayes there errors found. I then run chkdsk /r and wait until it finishes run it again with the /p and this time it has no errors.

I try to install again but I get the same thing from the installer it does not see the windows partition. I had mint installed on the entire hard drive but I needed windows installed for my wife. Wiped the hard drive and installed windows but cant get mint back on the hard drive. it is getting a bit frustrating. Any ideas?

Thanks kelean.

[distoaddict]

run gparted on the live cd to see if it says the same thing if you have not already done so.

[kelean]

Yes I have and I get the same result. I can only use the entire hard drive. I am not able to resize the windows partition. It's all or nothing.

[distoaddict]

it seems as though your hdd doesn't want to play nice.i would have thought when you reinstalled windows it would have sorted it out.
however if you're using mint6 felicia you could try mint4win.

[altair4]

I've had the exact same thing happen to every machine ( Win2K and WinXP ) I've installed Mint on. The yellow triangle scared the bageebies out of me. Long story short there was nothing wrong with those partitions. My advice to you is to use a partitioning software designed for windows. The one I use is not free, it's hard to use and has to be installed into its own partition. Some folks seem to like EASEUS Partition Manager - it is free and easier to use than mine I'm told. Please note that I have not used this myself so I'm taking the word of people I know concerning its quality.

Read a review here: http://download.cnet.com/Easeus-Partiti ... =mncol;pop

Download it here: http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

If Easeus thinks there is something wrong with the partition and can't fix it my reaction would be a bad disk. Once you get the Windows partition to the size you want then use Mint's partitioner to create the linux partitions. Windows tools for Windows, Linux tools for Linux.

Just my opinion.

[kelean]

altair-4 thanks for the info and links I will check that out.

I got out my ubuntu alternate install disk and that would not work either. A while back I ran into some problems with my system doing some goofy things. I thought I had come to the conclusion that it was bad memory. I replaced it and have not had any more problems. Seems like I might have other problems.

Im not looking to forward to reinstalling windows again. What a PITA. At least i know what drivers and software I need to download. Looks like its time to burn those to a disk so they are nice and handy if it all goes south lol.

[kelean]

Well EASEUS did not work. I get the partitions how I want them. Click to perform operations. The computer reboots to resize then I get an error saying that it cannot perform the operations.

Tomorrow I will check out min4win.

Thanks for all of the help, kelean.

[altair4]

There is something odd going on with that disk. Did you try the following in Win2K:

My Computer > right click the windows drive > Properties > Tools > Error Checking > Check Now > and check the following:

"Automatically fix file system errors"
"Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors"

It will tell you that it needs to be rebooted - do that.

After it had done its thing go to the "event viewer" in win2k to see if it has actually done anything.

[kelean]

altair-4, I tried what you suggested. It said that it fixed 3 errors in the logs from what I could tell. I tried to partition the drive again but I get the same error. I guess the hard drive does not want to cooperate any more. The only thing is mint4win. I have used wubi for ubuntu on a different computer but was not thrilled with it. I hope mint on this machine will be better. Yhanks Kelean.

[altair4]

You could go with VirtualBox. It creates a virtual machine with virtual hardware within your win2k install that you "install" mint into. It allows you to run Windows and Linux simultaneously without rebooting.

There are two versions: OSE - Open Source Edition ( does not have USB support but depending on what kind of usb devices you are running there are ways around that) and the "Personal Use" version ( still free ) that has all the bells and whistles including USB

With VirtualBox just remember the "Only Download on the Six" rule:
This was from their support forums:

The VMware team and the VBox team have somewhat different philosophies re new versions. VMware seem to release them every couple of years. VBox has issued new versions (X.Y) every 3-6 months with dot releases in between. The .0 versions have a reasonable chunk of new functionality but stability problems with this. The last most stable releases where 1.5.6, 1.6.6 and 2.0.6.

I can personally attest to the fact that the statement above is absolutely correct
http://www.virtualbox.org/

[kelean]

Well, I installed mint with mint4win. I am a happy bot again.

I checked out the virtualbox altair4 but I do not have enough memory to run it properly. That is why I installed inside of windows.

Thanks for all of the help, Kelean.