Currently have WinME / 2000Pro dual boot system.
Have 40GB HD currently split to 17.3GB WinME (FAT32) / 10.7GB Win2000 / 10.2GB unused.
Trying to install RH7.2 in the 10.2GB space.
Have ISO files (MD5 sums are OK) and boot disk.
Run either normal or 'expert' install - I end up in Disk Druid text mode to create partitions.
From the manual it seem I need to create;

Mount Point Size
/swap at least as much as the RAM in system
/boot 50MB min
/ root partition

Whichever order I try to create these in I cannot create the 3rd! When creating the first I get a message saying that the partition table on /tmp/hda is inconsistent - that this is safe to ignore - but ignoring may cause (fixable) problems with boot loaders and FAT32 systems. Full of bravado I press ignore. Create 2 partitions - doesn't matter which of the 3. Go to create 3rd and receive message 'could not allocate requested partitions: partitioning failed: could not allocate partitions.

I would create the partitions using FDISK but the /M option is a little less helpful than I would like - I don't want to destroy my ME and 2000Pro setups.

Do I need to move my free space to the start of the disk - I have a utility which will move my ME and 2000 partitions to the end - or do I have to set the disk to LBA or PIO mode4?... Dunno....

I want to get this to work - I just don't know where to go for the answers!!

Sorry for the long post!!

GeeTee
graham.taylor@freeuk.com

Just guessing at this point, but you may be running up against the limitation of four primary partitions. From the description it always fails on the fifth. I would make your swap first, I believe it has to be a primary partition. Then make on extended partition using the rest of the disk. Then you can make the 50meg boot, and all the logical partitions you desire 50 meg is actually a little big I've been told bit that's what I used for a long time.

Actually with RH 7.2 the last time I installed it I didn't make a /boot partition and all was fine it just put boot on /. Either way working with 10 gig I would make about a 6 gig / and 4 gig /home. That way if you want to wipe it and start over you don't format /home and your files & settings are saved.

You could always grab ranish partition manager and get a second opinion.
You may want to check out extended operating system loader I'm using it to boot three different Linus installs. It's pretty sweet.

Hang in there.

First, there's no such thing as Disk Druid text mode or Partition Magic for Dos 3.2. DD is graphical point-n-click. If you mean a blank screen with white text scrolling up, that's fdisk.

Nope, you don't need to move anything. The manual is extremely outdated. I suggest using Grub as your bootloader. Wait a min. You're using W2K bootloader? Then you must output lilo to a file and let W2K do the job.

Back up your files & favorites on Windows
Defrag & scandisk thorough
Install Linux
Install lilo on 1st sector of Linux partition
Create bootdisc, boot it
dd if=/dev/hda3 of=boot.lnx bs=512 count=1
cp boot.lnx /mnt/floppy
Boot 2K
copy boot.lnx c:\
edit boot.ini
After multi(0)..., add
C:\boot.lnx="linux"
Reboot

FWIW, my setup is W98, will-be BSD, 3 Linux distros & BeOS. BeOS bootloader is the best, IMO.

Lastly, with modern computers, you don't need /boot partition. Just mount a 2.5GB+ as /. It'll ask you about swap, say yes to skip. No swap is needed for 128MB RAM+. Everything will be in /.

I'll go with Psycho on this one- since you can only have 4 primary partitions on a disk, that's probably what you're running up against. Make an extended partition out of the 10G of free space, and then during the Linux install you'll be able to create logical partitions for Linux.

A couple of notes:

- as jetblackz said, you no longer need to make a separate /boot partition (although I still do, just because it keeps my kernels in their own space). The requirement for a small /boot partition comes, for the most part, from the days when the kernel had to be located below the 1024th cylinder of the disk; on larger disks you had to create a small /boot below that, although the rest of your filesystems could reside anywhere. This is no longer an issue, so a separate /boot isn't necessary.

-You shouldn't have to move anything to the head of the disk (see above).

- As far as specifying LBA mode, you might have to include that in your bootloader's config file if Linux is having trouble understanding your drive's geometry. Setting PIO modes is a separate issue; it relates to disk performance. Read the Hard Drive Speed Tweak for more info on that.

believe you can have 4 patitions on a disk,4 primary, 3 primary and one extended. i am thinking that a operating system has to be installed on a primary.if you try auto partitioning with 4 primary , and it doesn,t work., the onlyt thing i can suggest it try 3 primary and one extended with a couple of logical drives..