Description: I originally had a 20 GB hard drive with Windows 98 installed on it. I wanted to try Linux for the first time, so I went out and got Red Hat Linux and two Western Digital 100 GB hard drives. Upon installation of one of these drives, I realized that my system's BIOS couldn't handle anything above 32 GB. So, I used an alternate jumper setting, recommended by Western Digital until I could upgrade my BIOS. Once the alternate jumper setting is used, the BIOS sees the hard drive as a 32 GB hard drive. I used the Data LifeGuard disk that came with the Western Digital hard drive to install EZ-BIOS on the new hard drive, and to copy the contents of my old hard drive onto the new one. The contents of the drive copied over successfully, and with EZ-BIOS installed, Windows 98 recognized all 100 GB of the hard drive's capacity. After I had Windows 98 running without a problem on the 100 GB drive, I formatted the old 20 GB drive with Windows 98 on it and stored it in a safe place. Time for the second drive to be used for Red Hat Linux... I installed the second drive without a problem. I booted from the CD-ROM and got the Linux install screen. I chose the GUI for installation. The installation went fine until the Disk Partitioning Setup phase. I chose automatic partition, and then I got messages about both of my hard drives having to be initialized. "The partition table on device hda was unreadable. To create new partitions it must be initialized, causing the loss of ALL DATA on this drive. Would you like to initialize this drive?" I *INITIALLY* said "NO" to the FIRST request (for my Windows drive) and "YES" to the SECOND request. I got up to the point in the installation where it came to configure DUAL BOOTING so that I may have used Windows and Linux on this machine, and /dev/hda (my windows drive) was not listed... So, I went BACK and said "YES" to the first request, "initializing" the drive, understanding that the loss of data on the drive would come with creating new partitions, NOT with initializing. I did this because I was of the understanding that everything would have been okay as long as I deselected /dev/hda on the "AUTOMATIC PARITIONING" screen, which I did. It even said it was okay in the installation guide, page 45, paragraph 1: "If you have two or more hard drives, you can choose which hard drive(s) should contain this installation. Unselected hard drives, and any data on them, will not be touched." So, reading that, I UNSELECTED /dev/hda (my windows drive), and went on with the automatic partitioning, but WINDOWS was still not listed in the DUAL BOOT section of the installation. Hmmph. Okay. I figured it was something trivial and continued to finally finish installation. I rebooted the computer after installation finished, without a disk in the drive, and got the message saying, "Not found any [active partition] in HDD, DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER". "Uh-oh," I thought to myself. I inserted the Linux Boot Disk I made, and Linux eventually loaded up without a problem. Please tell me how to get my Windows 98 disk back. There's critical information on there that cannot be reproduced. It's the fault of whoever wrote in the manual that the contents of my drive wouldn't be touched, so I'm holding THEM responsible. I NEED access to my Windows drive and its contents. I can't do anything with Linux, because it doesn't recognize my D-Link 10/100 Mbps internal ethernet adaptor, nor does it recognize my NewCom Data/Fax/Voice Internal 33.6K modem. What gives? I spent the money on the boxed set to have a better operating system than Windoze, not to have all of my files erased!!!!! Reproducability: Tried, but couldn't reproduce it
The message says: To create new partitions it must be initialized, causing the loss of ALL DATA on this drive. I'm not sure how this message could be more clear about what the operation was going to do beyond destorying all data on the drive. This appears to be an issue with the documentation, reassiging.
Christopher, While I am trying to figure out a solution to your problem and a fix for the documentation, please take the time to register your product and use the support assistance that comes with the purchase of a Red Hat Linux boxed set. The support team should be able to help you with this problem -- and you are entitled to this help since you did spend the money on the boxed set. As for the hardware that isn't being recognized, the support team may be able to help you with that as well. At the least, you can refer to the hardware compatibility list at: http://hardware.redhat.com/hcl/. Best Regards, Sandra
While we believe that this may be an error caused by the EZ-BIOS application, enhancements have been made to the documentation to warn users of partition table errors and to back up their data before peforming an installation. The changes in the documentation will be reflected in the next public release of the Red Hat Linux documentation set. Thanks again for your feedback and for helping us to improve our manuals. Regards, Sandra