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Old 09-30-2004, 06:45 AM   #1
bid
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debian and xp just wont work on a 160GB HDD


wanted to install debian (woody R1 + R2update) and winXP on my new system with a 160GB IDE harddrive.

1st try:
installed winXP first using all the 160GB. shrinked the ntfs partition and created new partitions for linux (using partition magic 8) like this.
50MB ext3 for /boot
1024MB swap
130 GB NTFS5
25 GB ext3 for /
now i wanted to install woody.
during woody-installtions i wanted to run cfdisk, but cfdisk immediately shut down due to an error (start point of partition 4 exceeds disc limits; or something similar).
so i went back to partition magic and created the ext3 file systems wihtin winxp.
now installed woody using the partitions created with partition magic.
after installation i wanted to configure lilo to be able to boot XP from partition /dev/hda1 as well
(lilo installed in MBR). actually lilo said something like "no valid boot signature found".
after some tries with different lilo configurations i gave up and wanted to restore winXP using the rescue console from the installation cd.
after starting up the xp console, i found out that somehow the NTFS partition was completely corrupted. after doing a chkdsk the real mess showed up. lots of directories were missing (one of the directories missing was windows).
so the windows installation definitely was lost. so i reinstalled winXP without changing anything on the partitions. after installing XP i wanted to go to linux and try to reconfigure lilo.
therefore i put in the debian installation cd and started with the rescue option for kernel 2.4 (including info for root partition). after booting i tried to logon, but after entering the username the system did not ask for password, but instead i said "password incorrect" for about 5 times in a row.
ok, next i tried to reboot with the system with the same rescue option as before but in addition with the "init 1" option to get a root shell. with this option is actually could logon to the system. now i wanted to run lilo, did not work cause /boot was not mounted, but mounting /boot always failed.
/boot did not seem to be a directory, nor a file, symlink or anything else. "ls -l" actuall said that /boot is of type "?". so next i run a fsck, did not take long to find out that this partitions has too many errors to ever get running again. i found out one more thing, after installing debian it used about 1.8 GB space, but after fsck actually it only needed 450MB; so where is the rest?

conclusion: cfdisk has problems using drives greater than 137 GB.
i should not have ignored the error of cfdisc :-)
it seems that linux somehow wrote on the ntfs partition; this can be the only reason for the completely corrupted NTFS partition and missing data on the ext3 partition.

2nd try:
deleted all partitions.
first installed woody creating partitions like this:
50MB /boot
1024MB swap
100GB free
25 GB ext3 for /
(actually there still is about 25 GB free space left after the last partition, cause its only possible to partition the first 137GB)
next installed winxp using the 100GB free space for the NTFS partition and created a second NTFS partition from the 25GB free space at the end of the disk.
after installation booted up linux with the rescue option and installed lilo on /dev/hda1 (root dir).
starting linux now worked with pressing (a->1) on startup.
winXP tryied to start up when nothing was pressed during reset.
actually winXP could not start up completely again.
it could start up till the screen with square within (looks like a 16:9 square) and the winXP logo;
then doing nothing. no chance to restore XP again.

3rd try:
same as above not using any of the free space above 137GB for any of the partitions.
same effect.

4th, 5th, 6th try:
same variations. it is not that easy to distinguish between what you have done when after some time.

does anybody have any idea how to get debian and xp running on this same system??

this is my system:
Athlon64 3200+
K8T800
160 GB IDE hdd
1GB DDR
FX6800GT
 
Old 09-30-2004, 08:13 AM   #2
bobbens
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What I did was install windows as NTFS, taking up 30 GB. Then I made a 60 GB shared partition in FAT32 at the end of the HDD for a windows/linxu shared area. Then I install debian (sarge) but when it says boot: i type in linux26 to install the 2.6.7 kernel (the other one didnt work with my computer, i have an amd xp 2600+). Just tell it to use the largest free block availible in the hdd, it'll make it for you and you just keep on hitting next and doing what it says. It'll install GRUB instead of lilo. Then I had no problems booting into either windows or linux.
The first time i tried it I did it like you (using partition manager and all) but it got screwed up. Dunno if it'll work but it was the only way for me. Hope it helps somewhat. Make sure you have the amd64 version of debian, and I personally would go with the sarge build netinstall.
 
Old 09-30-2004, 09:10 AM   #3
michapma
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Re: debian and xp just wont work on a 160GB HDD

Hi bid,

First of all, this may be of help:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO.html
Although it is older (2001 and kernel 2.0.8)

It may very well be best for you to make a Knoppix live CD, which has QT_Parted that might do the trick:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=225817

Doesn't specifically mention your problem (that I noticed) but might come in handy anyway for reference:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...icle&artid=121

Quote:
2nd try:
deleted all partitions.
first installed woody creating partitions like this:
50MB /boot
1024MB swap
100GB free
25 GB ext3 for /
(actually there still is about 25 GB free space left after the last partition, cause its only possible to partition the first 137GB)
Not possible? Google is your friend. The 137 GB is a native problem for NT4 and greater (system barrier). It's not a problem of NTFS though: ntfs.com. Keep in mind that manufacturer's numbers can be misleading, so you might only actually have around 150 GB of useable space. (See here.)

The 137GB limit is a BIOS limitation, "due to the 28-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA), Maxtor lists 3 possible solutions:Maxtor's answers. You won't be able to do the Intel Application accelerator solution with your non-Intel board I don't guess. Maybe it's as easy as updating XP to Service Pack 1 before trying to recognize stuff above 137GB.

The solution in the article below (also listed by Maxtor) could be helpful if you had/have the hardware for it.
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/di...137_winnt.html

So I get the impression that you can do this even with just Windows, depending on the limitations of the BIOS. Your motherboard looks to be pretty new, so you shouldn't have any problems in the following. If it has problems, you might could flash it (cringe) with a newer version to get the desired support, but I highly doubt it is necessary.

Here is "the answer," from another Large-disk-how-to:
http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/Large-Disk-1.html

Quote:
Long ago, disks were large when they had a capacity larger than 528 MB, or than 8.4 GB, or than 33.8 GB. These days the interesting limit is 137 GB. In all cases, sufficiently recent Linux kernels handle the disk fine.

Sometimes booting requires some care, since Linux cannot help you when it isn't running yet. But again, with a sufficiently recent BIOS and boot loader there are no problems. Most of the text below will treat the cases of (i) ancient hardware, (ii) broken hardware or BIOS, (iii) several operating systems on the same disk, (iv) booting old systems.

Advice
. . . .
For large IDE disks (over 137 GB): make sure your kernel is 2.4.19/2.5.3 or later.

If LILO hangs at boot time, make sure you have version 21.4 or later, and specify the keyword lba32 in the configuration file /etc/lilo.conf. With an older version of LILO, try both with and without the linear keyword.
And there are of course more useful comments there. Seems that even if your BIOS doesn't know how to recognize the >137 GB disk space, you just need to have Linux in the <137 GB disk space so that the BIOS can find it to boot up. Linux doesn't use the BIOS, and the ext2 and ext3 formats have no such limitations, so as long as the boot sector is in the lower section you should be okay.

There may be some kind of parameter to force cfdisk to look beyond the 28-bit limitation: LBA48? (see here with its follow-up response for a starting place to look further) for use in the partitioning.

Here is another older (Feb. 20) post on the topic with cfdisk:
http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbi.../msg00054.html


I think the problems you are having might be related to "normal" boot manager conflicts and not so much due to the 137 GB factor, since you are having them even when you ignore the 137 GB limit. The way I would approach the installation is this, assuming you can't get around the 137GB limit: Install WinXP, and make sure it works. (Personally, I would create one partition for the WinXP system, one for my personal files, and a small (~1GB) FAT32 partition for trading files with Debian just in case there are some NTFS problems later. There is no way your BIOS has the older 1024-cylinder limit, so just install Debian using cfsdisk as normal, using at least the 2.4 kernel. You might just consider upgrading to the 2.6 kernel after installing via an online apt-get since you have newer hardware. The difficult part is in determining how to let Debian handle boot management. (Actually if I were you I would download at least the first Sarge CD and burn it, and not fool with Woody, since you have new hardware. Woody is from like 2002.) There are more options than this, but here are two:

1) Leave the Windows driver in the MBR. Make the / (root partition) or else /boot bootable, meaning write the boot sector to one of those. Boot after that using a bootable floppy, and then write the necessary configuration file and install it in Windows, and tell boot.ini about the presence of this file. Then you will always load the Windows boot manager on boot, but will have an option to load the file that will point the way to your bootable Linux partition.

2) Just let GRUB handle the booting.


All of that should at least get you started.

Cheers,
Mike
 
Old 09-30-2004, 09:51 AM   #4
bid
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hi,

first of all thanx for the great effort you have put into your reply.

i did not have the 137GB problem within XP.
the 137GB issue only arose while installing woody.
on woody installation i chose to take the 2.4 kernel,
but it seems that the installation kernel here is not 2.4.19 or higher (i suppose its 2.4.18); this is why cfdisk has problems here.

when not creating a linux partition above 137GB it seems that everything is running fine in means of diskspace management.

the issue that now remains is, that after installing debian
XP just does not want to fully boot up again
(hangs on the screen with the xp logo and the 16:9 square).

maybe it would be best to get sarge......

thanx,

bid
 
Old 09-30-2004, 10:00 AM   #5
michapma
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Trust me, I learned a lot researching such an answer. Google can make anyone able to read look like an expert.

Personally I have always kept Linux and Windows on separate hard drives. Not that it really should matter, just always seemed like a good idea. Very useful to have functional operating systems on independent devices too, in the unlikely event of a disk failure.
 
Old 09-30-2004, 11:45 AM   #6
bobbens
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Don't know if it will help, but with a 120 seagate barracuda when I installed the 2.4.18 kernel with the stable debian branch I wasnt able to start windows xp (some wierd authority failure) and my linux also wasnt working well. I heard that the 2.6.x kernels are alot more stable with the newer hardware and since your hardware is better then mine :P, the same thing might happen. I think you should try D/Ling the sarge netinstall and doing linux26 (2.6.x) kernal at boot:. It might not work, but it's worth a try. And if i were you i'd install windows xp first. Good luck
 
Old 09-30-2004, 12:09 PM   #7
michapma
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Sounds like a plan, soldier.

http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~chapman/images/sarge.jpg
 
Old 09-30-2004, 02:53 PM   #8
bid
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i now downloaded sarge (the unstable amd64 port from Alioth).
this netinstall only provides a 2.6 kernel and now the whole 160GB disk space can be partitioned.
grub could not find the boot signature of XP in the MBR,
so i decided to put the bootstrap on a floppy to integrate it in the win bootloader later on.
but actually this did not work (the drive mapping to the bios device was missing).
so i installed the bootstrap on /boot (hda3) and used a little program called bootp under winxp to extract the bootstrap from hda3. after declaring this bootstrap file in the boot.ini file at last both operating systems are bootable.

HEUREKA


thanx alot for your help and time.

P.S. so, only downloading all necessary packages is left; this could be rather annoying with a bandwith of 228K ..... :-)
 
Old 10-01-2004, 04:55 AM   #9
michapma
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Yea! Good stuff.

It may be too late, but I would recommend NOT using tasksel or dselect. Start with just the base system, and make sure to read macondo's Post-installation guide. He points to a couple of other guides, it's probably worth reviewing even if you're fairly sure you know what you're doing.

Concerning GRUB, make sure you consult the GRUB manual carefully before giving up on it. I consider GRUB to be the superior and more flexible boot loader (so do the folks at Debian, which is why it is used). With the documentation you should be able to learn to tell GRUB what the system didn't want to. You can also make a bootable CD for "in case": "GRUB supports the no emulation mode in the El Torito specification. This means that you can use the whole CD-ROM from GRUB and you don't have to make a floppy or hard disk image file, which can cause compatibility problems."

Glad for you.
 
Old 02-20-2006, 09:28 PM   #10
subjazz
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Just tried booting WinXP with Debian Sarge 3.1 with 2.6 kernel on a 300 GB drive [2-20-06].
WINXP 60 NTFS GB
FAT32 100 GB
DEBIAN 122 GB
WINXP would not boot with GRUB on a 300GB drive. It does work on a 120GB but not a 300GB. When I went to repartition the drive using system commander all the file systems vanished!?
Does Debian have a limitation past the 137? I was wondering if I could create a 5GB NTFS , A 10GB FAT32 and still be under the 1024th cylinder, or perhaps I can give the whole 300GB to Debian and install win4linux 5.0 (which I have to mount roxio cd's under a Fat32 win).
I sure would appreciate some advice.
 
Old 02-26-2006, 02:39 PM   #11
randrake
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How does one create a 100 GB FAT partition? 32 GB is as large as i could ever go.

Last edited by randrake; 02-26-2006 at 02:41 PM.
 
  


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