Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 358
DiskDruid incorrectly sees "0xf" Windows 95 extended partition
Last modified: 2008-05-01 11:37:48 EDT
This Gateway PC has a 2MB /dev/sda1, ~7MB /dev/sda2 which is a Windows 95 extended partition, type 0xf. Linux fdisk sees this correctly, and I was able to remove the NTFS partition inside and replace with three Linux partitions. The installer then makes me reboot. After the reboot I bypass the partitioning stage, but when I am asked to assign mount points, the DD interface still doesn't see the Linux partitions inside this 0xf extended partition. Presumably removing the /dev/sda2 partition and replacing with a "normal" extended partition would make the installer happy, but what of NT?
This is a bug in the disk druid portion of the install code which is what you see when you are asked to assign mount points. The current workaround is to use the linux fdisk utility and change the partition type from Win95 Extended (type f) to Extended (type 5). This will allow the install code to see the partitions correctly. You can then leave it that way indefinitely or use fdisk at a later time to change the partition back to type f. We are working on the install code to allow it to work properly with this new partition type.
This problem might serious for some people. I lost some data on one of my partitions and I think I've figured out why: I had an 8.4GB hard disk that had one 2.1GB FAT16 partition and one 2.1GB Win95 Extended partition (type 0F). The Win95 Extended partition contained a 2.1GB FAT16 partition. (It's a silly way to set it up, but that's the way it was.) When I tried installing Linux, I think Disk Druid couldn't identify the Win95 Extended partition and decided that it was a primary partition. I then set up three additional Linux native partitions and a Linux swap. Since there are more than four partitions, some of these need to be in an extended partition. What happens when Disk Druid tries to create a second extended partition? I'm not sure. I think what happened is that the installer got confused and started writing data to the second FAT16 partition. (Can it do that?) As a result, it overwrote my data, made the second FAT16 partition unreadable to Windows, and screwed up the Linux installation. While the installer was loading the packages onto the drive it kept telling me that there was no space left on the device. A lot of this is speculation, but I've tried the entire process on an brand new identical drive and the results are consistent. BTW, do you know the difference between Win95 Extended (0F) and extended (05)? 0F is used for an extended partition if INT13 extension support is available. I'm not sure if it makes a difference though...