sabayon linux x86 loop3 harddisk problem :(

[andu]

I formated my 120gb harddisk yesterday and everything was ok

I made three disks from my harddisk

1) 50 gb fat32- I installed windows XP professional
2) 40 gb ext3- I planned to install Sabayon Linux
3) 2 gb ext3- for linux-swap

to make dual boot machine I needed to install Xp before SL, because I heard sth about that XP will overwrite MBR

before XP install I tried Sabayon linux live cd and it recognized all my partitions- everything was ok until I installed XP into fat32 and after that I want to install SL but now I am on live cd and now partition editor says-

dev\sda (111,79)

partition- anollocatted
filesystem- anallocated
size- 111,9 GiB
used- ---
unused- ---
flags- (nothing, even not ---)

the easiest way is problablary total format but installs take too much time and if it happens again.

I am very greatful of any help

[andu]

I forget to said that after starting live-cd, there was an error at my screen

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

activating device- mapper RAID(s)

no RAID disks

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

but that error was previous time also before XP install and still it recognized my partitions

I haave made several restarts and tried everything-
XP works perfectly

still greatful of any help

[WarraWarra]

Think windoes has tried to write to the MBR of the hd not sure it happens sometimes.

Fix:
If you can get back into the live cd / dvd you might want to del the linux / swap partition and redo them leaving the windows partition alone.

Best option for you time wise and easiest:
If not maybe use something like "acronis disk director" in windows and modify the partitions with demo or licensed program both work.

Alternatively:
Try "fsck -y /dev/sda2" or /dev/sda3 presuming the sda2 = 40gb partition and or /dev/sda3 is swap or vice versa not sure if this would fix it as likely the boot descriptor ? the thing saying to any OS that this is how the partitions work and is laid out has become unstable / unhappy.

There might be newer fsck.ext3 or something like this as well not sure about correct name for ext3 check disk program name.

If you manually want to change partitions in linux then as root in terminal type "cfdisk" and change them (del / new / boot / type) this way if you can get into any other linux OS except windows.

Then once finished with cfdisk do it the old school way and "mkswap /dev/sda3" presuming 3 = swap as well as "mke2fs -j /dev/sda2" if sda2 = 40gb or new ext3 then Reboot and try installer (3.4 loop3 or 3.3 ) again then let it format the partitions once you use the manual partition part in the installer.
Swapon can be used "swapon /dev/sda3" but should not have too , to activate 2gb swap partition for use.

Example:
Root = / or /dev/sda2 40gb
format as ext3
swap = swap or dev/sda3 2gb
format as swap
128mb partition = /boot but not needed just nice to have,
format as ext2 or ext3 either is good.

Hope this helps.

[andu]

seriously- thank you

im newbie in linux but i´m gonna try this