I have been running Linux and Windows for around one year on a 37 GB hard drive, first with Win. Me and now with Win. XP. To do so required some figuring out to get round the '1024 cylinder problem' . Using Partition Magic I did the following: 1) Resized the FAT32 Primary partition down to 22.8 GB 2) Created a 20 Mb Primary Ext2 /boot partition at the start of the drive by moving the FAT 32 partition up. 3) Created an Extended partition with the remaining space of approx 15 Mb; and within it 3 logical partitions, FAT32 - swap - and Ext2 root (/) Everything worked fine, with System Commander as the boot manager, until yesterday when I found that my Interactive Banking program had a compatability problem with Windows XP, so decided to add Windows 98. Rather recklessly in hindsight, I went ahead and converted my second FAT32 partition from 'logical' to 'primary', which was very easy, and I was left with 3 Primary partitions and 1 (smaller) Extended Linux partition. Booted up Windows XP subsequently without any problem, but Linux to my surprise gave out the dreaded 'kenel panic - unable to mount fs' message. Using the Rescue system did not help so I thought my problems were over when I re-installed Linux. - but the problem persisted with exactly the same 'kenel panic - unable to mount fs' message. The problem lay apparently in the fact that the extended partition now lay outside the 1024 cyl. range, and Partition Magic reported this fact and suggested marking the Extended partition as ExtendedX. However by this time I was tired of experimenting, so merely 'back-tracked' by converting the second FAT32 primary->logical and now I am back where I started, Windows XP and Linux - but no Win. 98 My unanswered questions are as follows 1) Can anyone explain the mystery of 'marking' an Extended partition as ExtendedX - not mentioned anywhere in the Partition Magic Manual. 2) Upto now I thought that only the /boot partition needed to be within the 1024 cyl. range, but now it appears that the root ( / ) partition also needs to be. 3) According to Yast2 Partitioner the root ( / ) partition starts at 4210 and ends at 4864 in the first place, so what difference does it make since it was already outside the 1024 cyl. range at the start! 3) Does all this mean that my only option for Linux with Win. XP and Win. 98 would mean booting Linux from a floppy?