I had my drive "D" partitioned and formated with Partition Magic for installing Linux. I did get Linux installed (sort of) but I made a unbelievable mistake and put it on dive "C", the wrong HD, It was a mess and embarrassing to say the least. So I reformatted drive "C" and did a fresh install of WinXP. But now my dive "D" is bad. My file manager does no longer show dive "D" at all. I have not messed with the jumpers from when it used to be a logical drive. When I open Partition Magic it shows drive# 2, but does not show system file, size, or logical/primary. Using Partition Magic to format drive# 2, I get the following errors: BadMBR Bad Argument/Parameter There are no primary or logical partition on the drive Can anyone help me with this dilemma ? WinXP Home SP2 1000 megahertz AMD Athlon 256 megabytes memory C drive 30 GB NTFS (OS) dive# 1 D drive 30 GB (bad) drive# 2 PartitionMagic v8.0

do a system restore back a few days before it messed up . in a dual boot system, linux must be on c: xp on d: or e: xp will setup the dual boot during its install. you do not need partition magic

uppercrust: In this case, unfortunately, dive C got reformatted after it got messed up, then with the clean install of WinXP, there is no restore.........thanks

I slept on this last night and I think I know the answer ! This is a computer I do not use very often. Over six months ago it got hit by lightening and I had to replace the power supply and the mother baord. I have not used it since after I replaced those. I'm sure the lightening stirke zaped this HD also. "I haven't lost my mind, I have it backed up on disk somewhere"

Hi Interesting idea, but I'd bet on a messed up partition data. If you are worried about the drive, you can generally download a diagnostic from the manufactures's website. (also system memory should be checked if it is the same memory - memtest86) Ok you have reformated and freshly installed XP. Some sort of mess, which might take a bit to unsort, but I feel it would be easier to start from scratch again. This time zero the drive first, or just clean up the first sector. Killdisk is what I would suggest. Download the free iso or floppy version. It should procede smothly unless there are some bad areas. Boot up the XP install disc. Partition off a small chunk for fat32 for data sharing. This drive will be labled C: Partition off what you want to use for XP. Install XP to D. Having done that - install linux. If you accidently stomped on c: before, I'd guess it was RedHat, you tried to install. Anyhow, use the partition GUI of the linux install, to create some more partitions. Install linux. Make backup lilo disk. (unless you are happy to use grub) If you have a copy of Partition Magic, I'd suggest you create a second primary partiton to install linux on. The only reason for this is Extended Partition tables are at the mercy of M$, and trying to rebuild one is far harder than rebuilding the Primary partition table.

anenefan wrote: "Interesting idea, but I'd bet on a messed up partition data." Thank you very much anenefan, you are right on the money. This is strange, PartionMagic would not delete the partition but WinXP Disk Management would and that I had not tried yet. Figure that ? And that is what it took, to delete it first and repartition, everything shows up again. You made my day, Best Regards, OBnascar "I haven't lost my mind, I have it backed up on disk somewhere"