Mystery "Partition"

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Hey everyone. A few days ago I installed openSUSE 11 for dual boot with Vista. Had no problems and everything worked out great, and haven’t had any issues since then. Except for today. I noticed today a “c” folder in /windows, along with “C” and “D”; it hadn’t been there before. “C” is just a 1TB SATA drive I use for storage, and “D” being the boot drive housing SUSE and Vista. That “c” “partition” is a little over 10GB being taken/used from “C”, and I can’t access it. Not that it’s negatively affecting me, but I find it strange and rather annoying.

Here is the output of fdisk -l:
Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1938021 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x16259f5b

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1938021 976762552+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
This is the TB drive

Disk /dev/sdb: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5b6ac646

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 11864 95295580 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2 11865 14593 21920692+ f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
This is the mystery area
/dev/sdb5 11865 12126 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb6 12127 13161 8313606 83 Linux
/dev/sdb7 13162 14593 11502508+ 83 Linux

And here is the output of mount:
/dev/sdb6 on / type ext3 (rw,acl,user_xattr)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0620,gid=5)
/dev/sdb7 on /home type ext3 (rw,acl,user_xattr)
/dev/sda1 on /windows/C type fuseblk (rw,allow_other,blksize=4096)
/dev/sdb1 on /windows/D type fuseblk (rw,allow_other,blksize=4096)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)

Anybody have any ideas on how to fix/get rid of this?

#2

Ah, you don’t want to get rid of sdb2. It’s an extended partition that contains sdb5-7. Look at the cylinders.

Don’t know about the extra /windows/c, it doesn’t sound related. Maybe it’s a folder you accidentally created? Anything in it?

#3

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 11864 95295580 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2 11865 14593 21920692+ f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
This is the mystery area
/dev/sdb5 11865 12126 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb6 12127 13161 8313606 83 Linux
/dev/sdb7 13162 14593 11502508+ 83 Linux

sdb2 = an extended partition
think of of like a box, that contains sdb5,6,7

so it’s not a partition as such, it itself does not have data, it just acts as a container for sdb5,6,7 - which are logical partitions.

Basically the installer knows you can only have so many Primary partitions on a disk, so it creates a extended partition within which you can have loads of logical partitions.
In this case used for your Linux install.

Is that what you needed?

#4

I think I get it, but why would that fifth “partition” JUST appear like that? It (and /windows/c) was never there before.

#5

It sounds like a OEM restore partition. Basically the place they store everything to wipe and restore your system.

Some OEM partitions can be erased, others shouldn’t be. If you got disks with your system then chances are it is safe to dump.

When in doubt check with your manufacturer.

#6

A restore partition is usually a primary DOS FAT partition. This one is an extended partition which is a container.

I think the /windows/c directory is unrelated. If there is nothing mounted on it and it has no contents, then it’s harmless.

#7

From the looks of it, /windows/c (some kind of mount point for the W95 Extended) is, or is related to, /home because of the partition size – 10.8GB. Which really makes no sense to me…

#8

I don’t see /windows/c in your list of mounted partitions. /windows/C yes.

If there is nothing mounted on it, then I don’t see how it’s related to /home.

#9

Actually, now that I’ve thought about it and looked at it. /home is 10.8GB and it would be the fifth partition on the dual-boot drive. So it appears /windows/c|W95 Extended is a container for it on my 1TB (NTFS) storage drive. But the question is now why is it “mounted” as the non-accessible /windows/c all of a sudden, being it so many days after the initial installation? Why is it just showing up? Hmmm…

#10

Yeah, I know. But /home and /windows/c are both 10.8GB, and /windows/c is not really a mounted partition. It’s kinda being faked or something. I dunno. It makes sense, but it doesn’t. Weird.

#11

How do you figure that /windows/c is 10.8GB?

If you do a df on an arbitrary directory, what is returned is the size of the filesystem it is contained in. So if /home and /windows/c are both on the same filesystem, then naturally they will return the same size. Since you didn’t post the output of df /windows/c, we can’t tell how you arrived at the figure of 10.8GB.

#12

Use the Partitioner in Yast > System
click on sda1 & give it a mount point of /vista; do NOT format
save out of that which will add it to your “fstab”
reboot to make the new fstab active

then look in “My Computer” & there’s your vista partition;)