[Solved] Partitions incorrect with Win 7 when using gparted/cfdisk/etc

Wheelman · 2015-10-25 00:09:05

Samsung N150 Netbook Windows 7 starter with Samsung recovery partition

I'm trying to dualboot Win 7 starter and Arch linux on a Samsung netbook

When creating logical partitions with Gparted or cfdisk the Linux swap and ext 4 partitions shows up on Windows 7 as primary partitions outside of the extended partition while the NTFS partition shows up inside the extended partition as logical drive. Disk management shows 5 primary partitions and 1 logical drive inside an extended partition.(See pic below) I'm using MBR.(not UEFI) It is my understanding that more than 4 primary partitions is not allowed in Windows with MBR.

http://i60.tinypic.com/s67ptc.jpg

Why is this happening? I asked on a windows 7 forum but nobody offered any answers. The partitions shows up correctly in arch as sda1, sda2, sda3, sda4(sda 5, sda 6, sda 7)

I've used Win 7 disk management to make all the partitions but without formatting the two partitions I would use for arch. Win 7 would show them as 3 primary partitions and 3 logical drives(RAW, RAW, NTFS) in an extended partition.(See pic below)

http://i60.tinypic.com/bfkkuw.jpg

Arch shows the partitions as before as sda1, sda2, sda3, sda4(sda 5, sda 6, sda 7) Can I just use the mkfs.ext4 and mkswap commands to format those two partitions that Windows designated as RAW? Would that cause any problems with Arch? What if I just partition in Arch where win 7 shows 5 primary partitions. Will that cause any problems in windows?(It didn't seem to since I was able to boot up windows just fine)

Which way is recommended? I've searched the internet and only ever found one person with the same problem(With Ubuntu and Windows) as I but didn't seem to get an answer either. So that means it's not common and I must have done something wrong?

-- read the Forum Etiquette and only post thumbnails http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/For … s_and_code [jwr] --

Last edited by Wheelman (2015-10-31 03:23:55)

Lone_Wolf · 2015-10-25 12:37:44

Look carefully at the first screenschot, it does NOT show 5 primary partitions, but 4 primary partitions and 1 recovery partition .

In the second screenshot, W7 shows 2 primary partitions , 1 recovery partition and 3 logical partitions.

Recovery partitions have a flag set that designates them as HIDDEN and are unaccessible from any OS.
Hidden partitions don't count as primary or logical parttions and can only be made accessible through special commands that change partition tables directly.

Windows diskmanager applet gives a highly simplified view of what's really on disk. If you want accurate details from within windows, check out windows cli-command diskpart .

MBR partitioning details can be confusing & tricky, and the diskpart command is typically only known to/used by windows system admins that have low-level practical experience with MBR setups
So i'm not surprised no one on windows7 forum responded.

-----------------------

To prevent problems later, before you run mkfs4.ext / mkswap we need to be sure you have setup the partitions correctly (especially with correct types ).
Please post fdisk -l /dev/sda output .

Wheelman · 2015-10-27 22:35:11

Thanks for your reply. I apologize for not following pic posting guideline.

Diskpart, showed the disks correctly even though disk management "applet" did not. Thank you!

I do have one more question now.

When creating an extended partition in Linux, it uses "Extended" for partition type.
When creating an extended partition in Windows, it uses "W95 Ext'd (LBA)" for partition type.

Which is preferred when dual booting windows and linux?

here is my fdisk -l /dev/sda output:

Disk /dev/sda: 149.1 GiB, 160041885696 bytes, 312581808 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x153e1a63

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sda1            2048  31459327  31457280   15G 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda2  *     31459328  31664127    204800  100M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3        31664128 146837503 115173376 54.9G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4       146837504 312580095 165742592   79G  5 Extended
/dev/sda5       146839552 151033855   4194304    2G 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6       151035904 178298879  27262976   13G 83 Linux
/dev/sda7       178300928 312580095 134279168   64G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Lone_Wolf · 2015-10-28 14:00:20

When creating an extended partition in Linux, it uses "Extended" for partition type.
When creating an extended partition in Windows, it uses "W95 Ext'd (LBA)" for partition type.
Which is preferred when dual booting windows and linux?

Partition type usage/interpretation differs between OSes , look at http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/p … pes-1.html
For modern systems the difference between standard and INT 13 extended bios calls shouldn't matter at all anymore.

If you plan to access logical disks from legacy systems (VM) :
For Dos or win 95/98 type 0x0F "W95 Ext'd (LBA)" is the best choice .
Windows NT systems however don't recognize 0x0F partitions at all.

Your partition table looks fine , i'd say you can go ahead with formattting sda5 & sda6 .

Wheelman · 2015-10-31 03:23:00

Thanks for the information! It's been very educational. I finished the dual boot process successfully. Windows 7 and Arch are running side by side. I was most worried about messing up the Samsung Recovery tool but I was able to boot that up successfully. All is good!

Thanks again!

Last edited by Wheelman (2015-10-31 03:24:28)

Arch Linux

#1 2015-10-25 00:09:05

[Solved] Partitions incorrect with Win 7 when using gparted/cfdisk/etc

#2 2015-10-25 12:37:44

Re: [Solved] Partitions incorrect with Win 7 when using gparted/cfdisk/etc

#3 2015-10-27 22:35:11

Re: [Solved] Partitions incorrect with Win 7 when using gparted/cfdisk/etc

#4 2015-10-28 14:00:20

Re: [Solved] Partitions incorrect with Win 7 when using gparted/cfdisk/etc

#5 2015-10-31 03:23:00

Re: [Solved] Partitions incorrect with Win 7 when using gparted/cfdisk/etc

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