kubuntu and partitions.

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Kol

Kol

Kol

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Hello guys,

When I installed kubuntu, I was worried it may accidentally ruin one of my partitions (was a windows one) so when I was at the partition stage I decided to hide it. Now, the problem is, whilst I am able to mount and view it in kubuntu, I'm not able to boot into it when I select it. Windows gives an error and if I now try to boot from my XP disc and reinstall windows over the top, it says the partition is not recognised (even tho it is still NTFS and nothing has changed bar me 'hiding' the partition).

This is what sudo fdisk -l reports

/dev/hda2 * 913 5776 39070080 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS

How can I stop the partition being hidden? Whilst I am happy being able to access the files on there, I actually need to boot into Windows to use and read/write some of the files on there.

For information - linux can see the partition, grub shows windows XP professional in the grub menu, it's just that it has changed from being a normal NTFS partition to a hidden partition... so for example, if I wish to reinstall windows, when it shows the partitions, it recognises the partition but cannot install or anything to it as linux has hidden it, even though it can see it. If it makes sense?
 
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You should be able to do something like

grub>unhide (hd0,1) <enter>
grub>rootnoverify(hd0,1) <enter>
grub>chainloader +1 <enter>
grub>makeactive <enter>
grub>boot <enter>
 
OK cheers for that mate, giving it a shot now.

edit - it doesn't like the brackets, so I removed them, now it's probing BIOS to guess drives which it says will take a long time!
 
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OK - in grub, when trying your suggestion, it says selected disk does not exist?
 
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Una said:
The documentation is here,

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/DOS-Windows.html
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/unhide.html#unhide

Should work because hda2 is (hd0,1) usually. Hard to say without seeing the whole partition table (both windows/*nix).

How did you hide it in the first place anyhow?
Click to expand...

Here you go mate - thanks for your help.

Disk /dev/hda: 100.0 GB, 100030242816 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12161 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 912 7325608+ 12 Compaq diagnostics
/dev/hda2 * 913 5776 39070080 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda3 5777 12161 51287512+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 * 5777 12161 51287481 83 Linux
kol@kol-laptop:~$

Is there not just a simple program similar to that what was in the kubuntu install? I simply selected the partition and clicked hide. Is there not something like that available to do the reverse?
 
Yeah try sudo apt-get install gparted.

You may just be able to toggle the hidden flag using that.

EDIT: Yeah right click partition -> manage flags -> untick hide possibly.
 
ok, one sec,

OK just installed it. It recognises it as boot hidden, but sadly doesn't give the option to change it. Grrrrrrrr. Thanks for your patience fella. I right clicked the partition, but no option to manage flags.

snapshot1.png
 
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Thats odd I have a manage flags under unmount option on right click. Try look in partition drop down at the top its also in there for me.

Otherwise try this,

sudo parted /dev/hda set 2 hidden off
 
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Una said:
Thats odd I have a manage flags under unmount option on right click. Try look in partition drop down at the top its also in there for me.

Otherwise try this,

sudo parted /dev/hda set 2 hidden off
Click to expand...

Nice one. In gparted it's no longer showing hidden. I'll reboot and see if it's done anything. Cheers. Most grateful.
 
Awesome - thanks for your help. Now typing this from my XP partition. Thank you very much Una :)
 
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