FDISK weirdness

[Albert Cahalan]

> 2 - WD Caviar 850 MB drives  (Model #AC2850)
> 
> I want to partition my second HDD in half, split between DOS and Linux.
> 
> The first time I did it:
> 1. Ran DOS FDISK and took first half of HDD
> 2. Booted Linux bootdisk
> 3. Ran fdisk for the Linux partition, but only ended up with about 80 MB!
> 
> It seems the disk didn't want to be any bigger than 512 KB.

512kB = 1023 cylinders

> Also, Linux doesn't like to be above cylinder 1023.

Linux likes it just fine, but the BIOS can't boot it up there.

> 2. Is there a right way?

Use Linux fdisk, and put DOS below 1024 cylinders.  Linux and Linux swap
go above the limit.  After you install both OSs and mount the DOS
partition, move /boot onto the DOS partition and make /boot a symlink to
the new place (suggestion: /dos/linux/boot).  Run lilo now, and it will
work because /boot is below the 1024 cyl barrier.