This is the prob bob! I just got my MDK 10 ready and in my hands for install, I installed it and perfect I was very happy, but this is the first time in my life that I have had to install it with another 3 part. right by it's side! Here's what I had before: - Win98SE = FAT32 - Work - Win98SE = FAT32 - Games - Win2KPro = NTFS - Graphic Design Ok, the way I got these things installed was don't ask I forget but none of them are extended partitions, none! This has never been a problem, until I could get lilo in I've been using Ranish Partition Manager, which has worked fine for booting them up, I have an 80GB drive to install all this on, I used 20 for each FAT32, which is 40GB then I used 5GB for win2K, which left me with approx. 35GB free, well I went into install and partitioned the end of the drive with /, swap, and /home, which is what I normaly do, all Ext3 Journ. parts, and I left 2GB at the end of the drive for BeOS when I finally get it up and running right, no problem there, I install everything and went on my mary way. Well when I got done and reset and went into Linux I set my things up looked at the other parts to make sure that all my files were still there and nothing went wrong and well everything is fine, no prob., but!!!!! Drum roll pls. When I went into lilo to boot my work drive it booted and worked fine, so I reset and tried to boot my Games drive ---------- What it still booted the work drive, so I tried it again, same thing, so I tried the NTFS it booted just fine, so getting a little frustrated I tried to use the work drives FDISK to make sure it recognized the part. well it does, so I went back to dos and tried to access it, well it should be E:, it always has been, well let's se E: has nothing on it, not even been formated correctly!!!! WHAT!!! So just to make sure I wasn't crazy I went back into linux to make sure my files were there, good they are, so I went into 2kPRO the game files are there but under the other 98 they don't show up and when I make it into 98 system it shows an extra drive now, not just the E: but now instead of my CDROM being F: another drive if F:, wow, So I checked E:, said it needed formating, checked F: it wasn't there either, well what a perdicament here, so I went back into dos, checked some more things out, well I know that Linux aren't going to show, but what's this an Extended Partition, what, so I fiddled well come to find out, when I set the games partition to active it boot just fine, but the work one won't and visa versa??????? I don't want linux to install under an extended part. I just want things normal, I tried to install Linux again, another 2GB installation all over again, no it's still the same, how do I fix this problem?? Pls. help, I love linux, I just hate problems, and I've never had this one before. I'm downloading Partition Manager 8.02 right now to see if I can create Linux part. and then install and maybe it will fix it, I don't know, someone let me know if you have any ideas? Joel

I take that back F: now becomes the old E:, and according to what PM 8 says that only 4 Primary Part. can be made on one drive, is there a way around this? Or is there a way that I could hide the Extended from Windows and NT?

"...only 4 Primary Part. can be made on one drive, is there a way around this..." Yes there is a way round it, that's what extended partitions are for! I think you can hide the linux partitons from NT/2000/XP by using disk manager...don't know about 98 though.

Ok, well I figured out how to fool the system, if I make the extended a Dos extended I can only hide it from 2k, 98 will not hide it, and no boot manager will boot from a hidden extended, tried it, but if I make the extended partition that linux is on a linux extended then none of the systems notice it's even there, but I can't find a boot manager to boot linux extended, only lilo will do this, or grub, but to be able to boot from my windows partitions since all partitions are primaries then I have to make it active before boot, how do I have lilo make one of my windows partitions active before it boots to it? Or the only other option would be to forget the swap and multiple partitions for linux and install it all on one partition, but I don't want that.

Forgetting swap for linux is a bad idea. Best way would be to use lilo to be able to boot all the OSs on you computer. First make a linux boot disk if you don't already have one. You can use the command "mkbootdisk" on most distros to do this. Next check that the boot disk works! Now edit /etc/lilo.conf and add an entry for windoze, it will be something like: other = /dev/hda1 label = windows table=/dev/hda In order to actually write the changes to your MBR run the command "lilo". Are you using your 2000 boot loader to load both 98 and 2K? If so you should still be presented with that menu if you choose to boot windows from lilo.

I finally did it guys, all I had to do is just use grub(since I don't know how to do this in lilo), and when it goes to boot anyone of the windows partitions, you just put at the bottom of the script "makeactive", I would rather use lilo, but since I don't know how to make a partition active in lilo.