Installing slackware 10.0 through VMWare

AglaSyS · 09-04-2004, 06:30 PM

My 2nd topic about installing slackware (haven't installed it yet, since this laptop was away for 2 weeks for repairs).

I decided to take preventive measures so i don't screw up my laptop again:

Burned an XP boot CD;
Partitioned the disk in 3 already - 27GB (NTFS - 07), 1GB (Linux Swap - 82), 9GB (Linux - 83);
Got VMware to install Slackware through windows.

As soon as I log in as root, using scsi.s kernel and choose my keyboard mapping, this is what happens:

Code:

root@slackware: /# fdisk /dev/sda
Device contains neither a valid D?OS partition table, nor Sun, SGA or OSF disklabel
building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous content won't be recoverable.

Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

Command (m for help):

So, what do I do? fdisk doesn't recognize ANY partitions, not even windows. I already created them using XP and changed their types to be able to install Linux. I tried the bare.i (default), scsi.s, scsi2.s & scsi3.s kernels.

Also, before Windows was reinstalled (it wasnt me who reinstalled it) the disk was IDE, and now VMware indicates it as SCSI. Is it possible to change the type even though the hardware wasn't changed?

*waits for someone to help*

Tinkster · 09-05-2004, 03:50 PM

I'd just play with the VMWare settings, and
change the drive back to IDE ... I'm quite
certain that the notebook wouldn't have
a scsi hard disk.

Cheers,
Tink

AglaSyS · 09-05-2004, 04:01 PM

I installed Linux anyway... Because VMware uses a virtual drive, it didn't detect the partitions and said the disk had only 4GB space. So I just installed Slackware normally, booting through the CD. I think that Linux wasn't detected the first time I installed it, because i wrote the boot data on the partition, instead of on the MBR (yeah, I was mortified by the idea of losing everything again). I advise anyone new to Linux to print a detailed tutorial before starting, and even if you have a tutorial, read the explanations the Setup displays. Oh yeah, partition your disk through windows first, it's safer =P

Kristijan · 09-05-2004, 09:02 PM

I thought the whole point behind VMWare was so you could install another OS on a virtual drive, without distroying or messing about with you're current setup.

Going from memory here, VMWare uses as defualt 4Gb when setting up it's virtual partitions. An fdisk -l would have listen the current partitions on the virtual drive.

Anyway, good luck with Slackware and welcome to the world of Linux

-Kristijan