Can't install a dual boot system

[Gilboa Davara]

On Fri, 2006-11-24 at 22:11 -0800, Mailist wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Nov 2006 22:01:50 -0800
> Norm <r.norm at sios.ca> wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, 2006-11-24 at 21:04 -0800, Mailist wrote:
> > > I have a windows xp box with 25 gig of unformted non partitioned
> > > space space on a dynamic drive.  The hard drive is partitioned into
> > > 2 ntfs partitions for xp.
> > > When I attempt to install either core6 of Ubuntu the boot windows
> > > partition is recognized and the remainder of the drive is lumped
> > > into as single partition of an unrecognized format type.  If I
> > > format a 3rd partition on the drive and format it as ntfs under
> > > windows (my only choice) it is still not recognized when I attempt
> > > to install any linux system.
> > > Both qparted and Gparted report the file system  as unknown on the
> > > second and third volume on the drive.
> > > How do I prepare the drive so I can use the remaining portion as a
> > > linux OS. I can format and use the drive as a windows drive but
> > > that is not what I want and reformatting is not an option.
> > > 
> > 
> > AFAICS "Dynamic drive" support in Fedora is disabled.
> > I'd venture to guess that it has something to do with "Dynamic" being
> > patented by the evil empire.
> > 
> > Can you boot into Windows XP and revert the disk to normal?
> > 
> > - Gilboa
> > 
> Thanks  Gilboa
> you basically confirmed what I thought was the problem.  I did find a
> refrence on the web to it being possible to instal a dual boot on a
> dynamic disk box.  I tried several different distro and came up empty
> each time, it seems that most distros have disabled dynamic drive.  
> support  
> There does not appear to by any way to turn dynamic disks back to basic
> disks.  I am still trying to find out what possible reason there is for
> anyone to have changed this box to dynamic.  About the only purpose
> could be it locks the box to being one that will only run the  evil
> empire's  OS.

Dynamic should -only- be used if you're using advanced features (E.g.
software RAID, on-line growfs, etc).
Assuming you aren't using any advanced (?) feature, open the computer
manager. (My Computer -> Right click -> Manage)
Disk Management -> Select drive -> Right click -> Revert to basic disk.

- Gilboa