Re: FW: Partitioning problem!!

[Vipul Mathur <vipul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Puneet,

On Mon, Aug 27, 2001 at 10:48:27AM +0530, Puneet Parashar wrote:
> I did create (or rather tried to create) the swap partition as of Linux
> Swap type. The error i received was "no primary". 
> I beleive that the problem is because of the number of primary
> partitions that you can create ( i am not sure if that is fixed) but
> fdisk allows you a number between 1-4 for primary partitions. Now i have
> a Win2K partition as "1", an extended partition as "2", and a logical
> Win2K partition as "5". that leaves only two more partitons in
> primary... 3 & 4. So does that means that i cant create different swap,
> root and boot partitions? (very hard to beleive!). this is why probably
> i receive the error "no primary".
> 
> Can you please suggest a solution to this.

Ok I think I locked in on you problem now. Your 'extended' partition contains
ONLY hda5 i.e. the HPFS/NTFS partition. and you must have been trying to create
boot, swap and root as primaries. There is no need to do that.

Just make the /boot primary first (n followed by p in fdisk), the others can
be logical (n followed by l).

And yes there can be a maximum of 4 primary partitions. Usually, one of these
is created as an extended partition which acts as a container for further
logical partitions.

> how do i specify the mount points?

After you finish creating the partitions in fdisk, write the partition table by
pressing w and then q to quit out of fdisk. Now when you press 'Next' to go to
the next step in the installer, you will be prompted to select the mount points.

> On Fri, Aug 24, 2001 at 05:03:36PM +0530, Puneet Parashar wrote:
> > i have to install RH 7.0 on my machine- PIII with 256MB RAM and 10GB
> > HDD. The HDD is partitioned into three - Two Win2K NTFS partitions and
> > third FAT32 formatted (but vacant) partition. The third parttion is
> > about 3.9GB. 
> > I tried to install RH7 into the third partition after deleting it and
> > creating the following:
> > 1) 80MB /boot
> > 2) 500MB /swap partition
> > 3) remaining as /root
> > but disk druid gives an error: can't create swap partition: no primary.
> 
> I hope you are not trying to mount a Linux native partition as /swap.
> This wont work as swap. Make it a 'Linux swap' type partiton. The last
> one should be / and NOT /root !!
> 
> Also, if you are comfortable with it, consider using fdisk to create the
> partitions during install. Disk druid will give problems having a /boot
> beyond the 1024th cylinder. Note that using fdisk, this should NOT pose a
> problem.
> 
> > Also, i tried looking at the partition table with fdisk. fdisk shows
> > 4 partitions as:
> > Device    Boot    Start    End    Blocks    Id    System
> > /tmp/hda1  *        1        383    3076416  7        HPFS/NTFS
> > /tmp/hda2            384    766    3076447+   5     Extended
> > /tmp/hda3            767    1215    3606592+  c    Win 95 FAT 32 (LBA)
> > /tmp/hda5            384     766    3076416    7        HPFS/NTFS
> >  
> > Why does fdisk shows 4 partitions when there are 3 and how come both
> > hda2 and hda5 are at the same cylinder (is it telling me that the
> > logical drive hda5 is mounted on physical extended partition hda2 but
> > the blocks are different!)
> 
> That is all very normal. The logical drive HAS to be inside an extended
> partition and some blocks are taken up. So dont worry about the
> different block sizes.
> 
> The following should work:
> o  Choose to use fdisk to create the partitons during install.
> o  Delete the hda5 FAT32 partition if it is not deleted already.
> o  At this point, a 'v' ie verify command to fdisk should show some
>     amount of unallocated sectors.
> o  Create a 50 MB 'Linux Native' partiton. This is for /boot
> o  Create a 256Mb or whatever size 'Linux Swap' partition for the swap.
> o  Create another 'Linux Native' partiton of the remaining size. This
>     will be mounted as /

-- 
Cheerio!

  ,_,   Vipul Mathur
 (O,O)  <vipul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>      http://www.vipulmathur.org/ 
 (   )  <vipul@xxxxxxxxxx>     "The Geek shall inherit the Earth"-Linus 5:5
--"-"----------------------------------------------------------------------
The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with computing systems
is a symptom of professional immaturity.
		-- Edsger Dijkstra