Hello,

I tried installing slackware on my new Asus notebook but failed to do so for the past 8-9 hours. Now, for the last time I did a complete recovery of the system(with the recovery dvd) due to some errors.

When I try to install Slackware I get the following message:

[I'M USING CFDISK]

FATAL ERROR: Bad primary partition 1: Partition ends in the final partial cylind.

I used fdisk /dev/sda and viewed the list of all partitions. Here it is:

Device Boot | Start | End | Blocks | Id | System
/dev/sda1 * | 1 | 23349 | 187542528 | 7 | HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 | 23349 | 38914 | 125026304 | f | W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 | 23349 | 38914 | 125025280 | 7 | HPFS/NTFS


The OS is windows vista home premium. The partition it created is C:\ and D:\ I have no idea why it shows three there...


ANY HELP would be fairly appreciated!

Cheers,

Daniel.

Have you tried to completely wipe the partition table?
fdisk /dev/sda
o
w

o creates a new empty partition table
w writes the configuration and exits.

I'm getting a warning when I try to create a new empty DOS partition talbe.

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

Edit.

After I typed W and athis is what it said:

"The partition table has been altered!"
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.

Ok now I manage to enter the cfdisk I see 320GB free, but I still need vista. I'm pretty sure if I exit slackware and intall vista again and come back to install slack afterwards I'll get the same error as before.

Your vista system and vista recovery takes up the whole disk
and fdisk of microsoft, when it creates a 2nd partition it always
create it as extended.
linux fdisk on the other hand can create up to 4 primary partitions.
If more than 4 partitions are needed then it creates 3 primary partitions
(/dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, /dev/sda3) then the rest are extended partitions
and the numbering for each partition starts at 5 (/dev/sda5, /dev/sda6, ...)

Before you install linux you must make some room on your hard drive
because vista+vista recovery takes up the whole space

I suggest this:
1. download a live linux system that has gparted
I recommend partedmagic:
http://partedmagic.com/
you can either run it from a cd or run it from a usb stick
2. in windows vista see how much space you can spare and decided
the maximum space you're going to devote to that system
3. boot with partemagic
launch gparted then
a) shrink the vista partition to the size you decided on earlier
b) move the second partition next to the main vista partition
Now you should have at the end some available space
Save and reboot in windows vista
vista will launch a check disk and eventually you'll get your desktop
3. Reboot with a live linux system
a) run fdisk
p
(to display the current partitions)
make sure it's
/dev/sda1 ....
/dev/sda2 ....
then:
n
create 2 partitions: one for the linux system and the other one for swap

Note: I have done the operation 3. successfully on my laptop
but you might want to do a backup to be on the safe side

The answer was in the output.

Just in case you did not relize, creating a blank new partition, will erase what was on the drive. So, if there is anything important on there, don't do it

Thanks a lot. I will try this and update you with the situation as it goes..

No luck. When I hit p to view the partitions I still see three sda1, sda2, sda5 there with an * at sda1(bootable).
I hit n, then at the partition number I enter 3 and leave everything as default.
It creates the linux partition but just that. I can't create another one for the swap...

Hi,

I prefer to use the 'M$ Vista' Disk Management tools to size their system. This way you will have less chance of error. Your problem at this point is that you have 'sda1, sda2 and the extended sda5'. You shrunk the Vista primary partition to allow more space for the next primary (3). You've got a fixed space for the extended. Once this is done then you can use the gparted or whatever to create the space(s) you need.

You either have to trash the recovery partition or find the means to increase the extended space. You could in effect decrease your 'Vista' partition to a workable space and hopefully move the recovery to the partition 3 (I don't think this is workable) or save/move it to another space temporarily.

Once done you could create a partition 3 with minimum space for whatever then create a extended with the rest of the space. Once this is created then you could create the extended 'sda4' then move the recovery back once you assign and create the filesystem on 'sda5'. Then you can create partitions 'sda6,sda7, sad8 ...' to make the filesystems necessary for your install from the rest of the space.

In effect your are just temporarily moving the recovery to allow the expansion of the extended to a usable amount for your install.

Thanks a lot for replaying.
I FINALLY got it working. I used the dvd to recover vista and at the option tab I always chose it to make two partitions. Install vista on c:\ and create another one d:\.
So this time I chose to create just a big partition and put vista there.
After it was installed, I sliced the hdd in half and kept 120gb for slackware. (I used ESASEUS btw, not the built-in tool in vista).
I then booted up the dvd with slackware tried cfdisk and bingo! it worked.
I just booted up slackware and all went well.. That's a relief considering i probably reinstalled vista 6 or more times.
Few things I didn't quite understood though..

1) After i sliced the partition in half I did not see it in vista(I can't even see it now, but now it's ok since I have it running slackware).

2) Why did vista created that third partition(recovery I guess) when I selected the option to create two partitions(c: and d and it didn't do it this time.

I'm thinking it might of worked if I just had deleted the sda5 in the first place. I couldn't see that partition in vista(in vista I only had c:\ and d:\ and I check it wasn't even hidden, it seemed like it was never there) but it was present in slackware.

I noticed though that the light that's suppose to be turned on when I plug in the power cord it's not... I can see that the power cord is plugged in on the tray bar but I was wondering why the light isn't working...(works in vista btw).
That's about it.

A big thanks.


EDIT.

I found the answer to my 1st question. The reason I could not see the partition is because the space was not allocated yet. I did create it but I forgot about formating it, I just used it like that to install slackware. After 13h I'm a bit tired...

Hi,

Glad to hear you got things going.

I wasn't sure if your 'Vista' install was dependent on the recovery partition. Some systems just boot a cd/dvd for recovery from the installed partition. Since you have the Full Vista DVD then things are different.

As for your LED, be sure to have your 'APCI' setup properly. Check your 'dmesg' output.

Good morning,

Well things were just too good to be true. After installing slackware I had a big c:\ partition so I went ahead and partitioned that so I would have windows on c:\ and other data on this last one.
After installing some programs on windows last night, I closed the notebook and went to bed. This morning I was trying to boot into slackware just to get the following message:

Kernel panic: not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(8,3).

The screen freezes after this and I was forced to shut down with ctrl+alt and power button.

I just looked in Disk Management under vista and this last partition it's created as Logical partition (extended partition). Should this be a problem?

PS: After I booted up last night into slackware I haven't modified anything.

BTW onebuck I just looked, it seems like it wasn't a problem with the light, it's doing it under vista too now.

EDIT

Ok the problem was that extended partition. I just deleted it and merged it back and all works now.

How can I create a partition without slackware complaining though?

Bear in mind that Lilo remembers partitions by their numbers.

Whenever you add a partition you change some partition's numbers, so lilo try to boot on a partition which either no longer exists or is not the good one.

What you could do is modify your disk's layout in Slacwkare using the fdisk or cfdisk command, then take a note of the new numbering of partitions, edit /etc/lilo.conf accordingly and re-run lilo.

Be careful doing that as fdisk and cfdisk are very powerful commands

I guess I'll leave it as it is for now and do that a bit later. I wouldn't wanna reinstall vista again. Thanks for all the help guys.

For future reference, here are some suggestions.

I've found that Linux and Windows partitioning round the boundaries for partitions differently. It's better if you can stick to creating partitions using one or the other and not both. It also helps to leave about 8 to 10 MB of empty space at the end of the hard disk in case the end of the last partition is not rounded to the same number as the size of the disk. It avoids complaints from "cfdisk" or "fdisk".

I like to use "grub" for a boot loader because it is not necessary to update the boot sector every time you install a new kernel or change the boot menu. With "grub" you just edit "menu.lst". That makes things much more convenient when you have Vista chain to Linux since the boot sector has to be copied to a file. If you use "grub" you will not have to update the Vista file after every change.

I also recommend that you DO NOT install the Linux boot loader to the MBR. Leave the standard boot code there. You can have the Vista boot loader chain to the boot sector in the Linux root partition. To do that you make a copy of the Linux boot sector into a file after installing "grub" or "lilo" to the Linux partition. Then use "BCDEDIT" in Vista to add an application boot sector entry to the Vista menu. You can find tutorials on how to do that, or I can provide most specific help.

If you want the Linux boot loader to start first, just change what partition is flagged as "Boot" (active) in using Linux "cfdisk" or "fdisk". The standard MBR code looks at the "Boot" flag to decide what to boot.

If you create an extended partition I recommend that you put the swap partition inside that first. Then you can delete and recreate the swap partition in Linux to eliminate any boundary rounding problems. Put other partitions (NTFS or ext3) after the swap partition in the extended partition.

The files for a boot loader should always be located in a Primary partition. You also usually install the boot loader's boot sector to the same partition. With Linux boot loaders you can install their boot code to the Master Boot Record (partition table sector) but I don't recommend that. If you have a problem then you can't boot anything else. When you install to a partition boot sector, you only have to change the "Boot" flag to make some other partition boot.

The files for an operating system (Windows or Linux) can be located in any partition including a Logical partition in an Extended partition. In some cases the files for the boot loader may be in a different partition than the files for the OS.

The Windows Setup program always installs the Windows boot loader (bootmgr) to the first Primary partition that has NTFS. You can move the files later but you get no choice about where they are initially installed. When there are multiple copies of Windows installed they ALL still install their boot loaders to the first Primary partition with NTFS. Use "BCDEDIT" in Vista to change the boot configuration if you move the boot loader files or the Vista OS files. In some cases you may have to boot the Vista Setup CD and start a command prompt in order to use "BCDEDIT" since Vista might not boot from the hard disk.

The restore discs provided by manufacturers don't include all the repair tools that come with Vista. I recommend that you get a copy of a real Vista Setup CD that can be booted. You don't need a CD key to use the repair tools.

Since the restore discs may give you no choice about partitioning I also recommend that you invest in a partition backup program and partition manager program. I can recommend Paragon Hard Disk Backup and Paragon Partition Manager. Both of those work well for me, but I have to format my Linux ext3 partitions using 128-byte inodes rather than the newer default 256-byte inodes.

Before I install Slackware I format the partitions like this.

mke2fs -j -I 128 /dev/hda2

Then I check to see if the inode size is 128.

tune2fs -l /dev/hda2

I tell "setup" NOT to format the partitions.

In addition to working with Paragon's software the 128-byte inode size works with the EXT2 Installable File System for Windows (ext2ifs).

Another very useful tool is the "DSKPROBE" utility from the Windows XP Support Tools. You can use that with Vista even though it isn't officially for Vista. You have to download ALL the XP Support Tools to get "DSKPROBE". Using "DSKPROBE" you can edit or view sectors from Vista and you can save sectors into a file.

Your manufacturer's setup discs may create a hidden partition on the hard disk (perhaps the first one). It's important that you look at the partition configuration carefully before you try to make changes. In some cases the hidden partition is a non-standard type, but you can often set it to a standard type to support backup and partitioning software. When the first partition is a factory restore partition then the Windows Vista boot loader (bootmgr) is often installed in the second partition. Then the second partition is marked as "active" with the "Boot" flag. If you delete the hidden partition then you have to change Vista's boot configuration using "BCDEDIT".

Hopefully some of these suggestions will help the next time you attempt multi-booting.