(forwarded) Partitioning problems, Redhat 5.1

[Mike Bilow]

John Abreau wrote in a message to Mike Bilow:

 JA>    Hi.  I recently purchased a book (Mastering Linux)  which
 JA> included a complete copy of Redhat 5.1 .  I have had nothing
 JA> but trouble trying to install it.  I followed the books
 JA> instructions to a tee, but to no avail.  It suggested using
 JA> the Fips tool to partition my disk, however that program is
 JA> on this linux CD and my computer will not recognize my CD
 JA> ROM drive while running in a complete DOS environment.  So I
 JA> went out and purchased partition magic.  I set aside about 1
 JA> gigabyte to install linux on.  when prompted, I selected
 JA> disk druid instead of fdisk just as the book suggested.  I
 JA> then get the error message: Fdisk error-  Error occured
 JA> reading partition table from the block device /tmp/hdd.  The
 JA> error was inpu/output error. ~  First of all, I wonder why I
 JA> am getting an fdisk error when i selected disk druid. 
 JA> Either way it lets me skip that and continue on to disk
 JA> druid.  I do not understand at all this "mounting"  of the
 JA> program, I just followed the instructions in the book.
 JA> However, linux keeps saying there is 0 Megabytes free on the
 JA> partition... which is false... because there is absolutely
 JA> nothing there... my Hard drive is 13.5 gigs, so there should
 JA> be no problem.  Please help me, i am desparately trying to
 JA> get this up and running, and nobody can seem to help.  Also
 JA> I am running windows98- can the FAT32 partition be the
 JA> problem?  Please help. Thanks- I appreciate it much!  =)

Oh God, where do I begin?

First, fips is NOT going to understand FAT32.  Game over.  You would need to
use Partition Magic or some similar commerical product anyway.  As it happens,
Partition Magic is probably the best of the available choices.

Second, all bootable partitions have to be accessible within the first 1024
cylinders of the disk.  There are certain exceptions, but basically this means
that you cannot expect Linux (or anything else) to boot reliably if it is
stored in a partition at the end of your 13 GB disk.

Third, errors reading or writing the partition table are most commonly a result
of virus protection being enabled in your BIOS (CMOS) setup.  The actual
purpose of such virus protection is to prevent access to the first physical
sector of the disk, which is where the partition table resides, thereby
preventing the most common mode of virus infection (favored by the Stoned,
Michelangelo, and other virues).

Fourth, I'm not sure why "/tmp/hdd" is mentioned, nor why it would be a block
device.  This could be correct, but ordinarily one partitions a disk using
nomenclature like "/dev/hda" for the master device on the first IDE channel,
"/dev/hdb" for the slave device on the first IDE channel, "/dev/hdc" for the
master device on the second IDE channel, or "/dev/hdd" for the slave device on
the second IDE channel.  There are yet more combinations for SCSI drives.  The
most common configuration on Windows 95/98 machines is to have a hard drive
wired as "/dev/hda" and a CD-ROM drive wired as "/dev/hdc", but there are
always exceptions.

Fifth, the Red Hat installation programs will require creating TWO additional
partitions: one bootable Linux partition (type 83, filesystem Second Extended)
and one Linux swap partition (type 82, filesystem Linux Swap).  Both of these
should be primary partitions; that is, they should be reference in the primary
partition table in the first physical sector of the drive.  Note especially
that the term "extended" when describing the filesystem ("second extended") has
absolutely nothing in common with the term "extended" when describing the
partition allocation ("logical extended"); do not confuse these.

Sixth, if you are in any way uncomfortable with this low-level manipulation of
your system, but a small junk IDE hard drive and use it for Linux instead of
your main one.  Messing with partition tables can easily destroy of subtly
overwrite data, so don't do this unless you really have some way of backing up
your whole Windows 98 system.  With a 13 GB disk, I can't imagine how you could
go about backing it up for reasonable money.
 
-- Mike
   (Author of the BruteForce disk utilities)


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