-----Original Message-----
From: George Lenzer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2000 1:53 AM
To: Redhat List
Subject: Certain to be an FAQ, but..."Partition too big"
Hi George! Since I've just (*as of last night!*) gotten this
working in a roughly similar setup, maybe I can help!
> I was trying to welcome some friends into the Linux fold
> tonight, but ran into a snag. I have done dual boot
> installations before with Windows NT and Win98. They
> have always been successful for me. Until tonight...
> Here is the situation:
> -One IDE hard drive (approx. 9 Gigs)
Ok, mine is a >little< different... 45 Gig drive, with the first
35 gigs for Win98SE (Hey, Diablo 2, IceWind Dale, Baldur's Gate,
Pool of Radiance 2, and Baldur's Gate 2 all take a lot (or will take,
for the couple I don't have yet!) a lot of space) That means
that ALL of my Linux partitions are outside the dreaded 1024 limit.
Also, I'm using a FIC VA-503+ PCB 1.2 with J439 BIOS. I did have
to upgrade my BIOS (due to UDMA-66 problems with the old BIOS).
YMMV somewhat if you're using a vastly different BIOS/Chipset,
but this worked for me.
> -Windows 98 SE is installed on C: (hda1) which is 2070 Megs.
> -My friend wants to have another partition, D:, be the same
> size. (2070 Megs)
Ok, this might be a SMALL problem, since I can't offer advice here...
I'm using a single FAT32 partition for the whole of Win98SE.
> -The IDE bus is set to use LBA in BIOS. (Cylinders = 1108)
Depending on your MB, try setting this instead to AUTO. If you
can use the drive natively (IE., without such things as EZ-BIOS,
etc.) then this should work.... and it allows the BIOS to report
slightly better.
> We got everything ready on the Windows side and then booted
> to RedHat 6.2 Installation. When we got to the
> partitioning section, any partition created for '/' was
> "too big". We backed out and went back to DOS. We deleted
Too big? What's the exact error message? I'm assuming that Linux's
fdisk (linux's) is showing /dev/hda1 as FAT or FAT32. If so, I would
creating/setting the following:
/dev/hda5 /boot ~50 Meg
/dev/hda6 / ~700 Meg
/dev/hda7 /home ~2000 Meg
/dev/hda8 Linux Swap ~200 Meg
/dev/hda9 /usr Fill disk
> the logical drive D: and it's extended partition. We went
> back to the LInux inastall and found we could only make a
> partition no larger than 2078 Megs. However, after
> attempting to install RH, when we went back to DOS, we
> couldn't create a new extended partition on the unpartitioned
> space.
Because you're using it, maybe, although I've also had a few problems
with a cross between fdisk and FDISK (i.e.. the Linux and Windows
versions). If that happens, I've found a test that works for
Maxtor drives (*Max Blast has a destructive test that will allow
you to restart*) and a program from Western Digital (*that seems
to be able to do non WD drives*) that is NON-Destructive that
can handle correcting partition header repairs. Check the two
websites.... I'd go with the WD attempt first, and see what
you can do. If it works, great, but DO NOT install EZ-BIOS
or one of the other similar programs... Linux doesn't work
with those!
> I know that LILO can't read beyond 1024 cylinders. Is there
Actually, it can... if you get the latest and greatest! Here's
how to do that, once, you get the install working.
Do the install, and MAKE A BOOT FLOPPY. I can't stress this
enough, and no one else can either... It's your rescue to the
real world. Ignore the Lilo failed to load errors... you're
going to get Lilo loading soon enough! Other than this error,
the install should go fine.
Use the boot floppy to boot into Linux. It should work
fine to boot up the machine into Linux, although it's a bit slow.
Get Lilo 21.5
ftp://metalab/unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/boot/lilo/lilo-21.5.tar.gz
Go root
Uncompress and untar Lilo.... then run make
Now, there has GOT to be a better way, but this is
what I did. Run QuickInst. Answer the questions to
configure your /etc/lilo.conf file. Install to the
MBR (/dev/hda)
You'll eventually be asked if you want to TEST the
configuration... go ahead. It'll fail (if you're
wholly outside that 8GB limit, at least). But that's ok.
edit /etc/lilo.conf and put a pound sign in front of
compact and linear (if either or both are present) and
add LBA32 as a line in the file.... I also added a timeout
200 here to allow me time to choose. Also, if you want
to boot Windows by default, you should add the keyword
default into the description.... so this is the kind of
thing you should see (*caveat: this is a different machine
than the one I set up last night, so I'm fudging a bit on
the changes I needed to make... it's illustrative, not
authoritative*):
-----------------------------------
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
timeout=200
#compact
LBA32
default=Windows
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.14-5.0
label=linux
read-only
root=/dev/hda5
image=other
label=Windows
read-only
root=/dev/hda1
------------------------------------
run /sbin/lilo -L -v
Now, remove the floppy and reboot.... Enjoy!
> anything I did wrong? What is the best way to proceed? Up
> until now, I always installed Windows 9x or NT first and left
> unallocated space on the drive for Linux. Then, I just set up
Believe me, it works... I did this exact same process.
> my Linux partitions in the unallocated space. I never really
> ran into this until I tried to set up dual boot with RH 6.2
> (which I burned from an ISO) Any suggestions appreciated...
> Thanks,
> George
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