Mark....I'll bet you have unpartitioned space inside an extended
primary partition. If this is so, then you need to delete that
extended partition as well, so that the Linux partitioning tools
can use the space.
Alan
Mark Lilly wrote:
>
> Hello,
> I successfully installed Linux in the following configuration:
>
> 1. Make: IBM Thinkpad laptop
> 2. Model: 600 E
> 3. Processor: Intel PII 366 MHz
> 4. RAM: 64 MB
> 5. Video: NeoMagic MagicMedia256AV
> 6. Audio: Cirrus Logic CS4610 (per Linux Probe)
> 7. Kernal Version: 2.2.13-7mdk
>
> This was on my work laptop in a dual-boot configuration with Win98 and NT
> 4.0 using System Commander on a 4 partition, 6 GB hard drive. I had not
> booted into Linux for about 3 weeks but I recently tried to boot and found
> that I am not only unable to boot the system, I can't even re-install
> Linux. The installation gets to the "Setup filesystems" part of the
> installation and then fails. If I try to use Disk Druid to configure the
> ext2 partition, I get the error message "Fdisk error: An error occurred
> reading the partition table for the block device /tmp/hda. The error was:
> Device not configured". If I use fdisk to configure the partition I get
> "Partition Disks: /dev/hda - Model (none) - Model (none)" and, upon hitting
> Return, the Installation process gets stuck. Additionally, after
> attempting a partition creation using fdisk, I get an error message "Reboot
> Needed: The kernal is unable to read your new partitioning information,
> probably because you modified extended partitions...". Note: Both the
> System partition and the Swap partition were placed in an extended
> partition in the original installation that worked.
>
> This appears to be a problem with the partition table. The only thing I
> can think that I changed since I last booted into Linux was that I
> installed Partition Magic 5.0 on the NT partition. The weird thing is that
> Partition Magic could see the Linux System partition as well as the Swap
> partition from inside NT. However, Linux cannot see the partitons even
> after I deleted them to "Free Space" and attempted a new installation.
>
> Any help with getting Linux to see this Free Space again so that I can
> re-install would be greatly appreciated.
>
> - Mark
>
