Unable To Re-Read The Partition Table?
 

This error is driving me NUTS. Im trying to install RH 7.3 on a new computer. It has 1 WD 800JB on a Promise ATA100 Controller. Everytime I try to install I get a nunch of the "Unable To Re-Read The Partition Table,............"

Can anyone tell me WHY I am getting these errors? and HOW to stop them?

Thanks

Are you able to install windows on the hard-drive? If not, then it could be a hard-disk failure. What are on the disk before you actually install RedHat on it?

You might want to go to the WD website to look for the software which allows you to do low-level formatting of your HD.

The drive is physically fine. I put it into a windows XP machine and did a full format of the drive and it worked fine. It is something about RedHats install that it doesn't like. But im not sure... other ideas?

I just finished installing SuSE 7.3 on a SunSparc 5. Before it would let me though, it told me the partition table was buggered and refused to continue. I then tried to install debian which allowed me to remove the old partitions and create new ones. I then went to install SuSE and it worked fine. I think some installers are a little to user friendly to be powerful. Try a different linux distro but just get the first boot kernel, re-partition the drive then fire up your desired distro.

RH 7.3 and Promise RAID
 

The same problem with RH 7.3 and ATA Promise Fasttrack RAID Controller ... I just search the web for this problem but the only think i've found was that RH 7.3 has a problem with the RAID Controller that means that RH 7.3 didn't support the Fasttrack RAID controller .. Maybe if you compile the bootkernel it will be working fine but i try this and the problem was the same!

any ideas else?


greetings neoblade

I have this same problem on Redhat 7.3. I have been trying to do software RAID, though. I have tried attaching my 3 disks to the onboard ATA controller on the motherboard. Same problem. That means that the problem does not lie in the drivers for the fasttrak, but something else.

Can check the RedHat site for the bugs reported...

I'm having this problem too. Here's all I can offer. Hopefully this can get fixed.

(In this case, the win98SE partition was deleted and only RedHatwas installed on it)
Problem on a 6 gig Maxtor drive. I let it default partition for me, but it didn't work. It previously had win98SE for it. I then data dumped /dev/zero to /dev/hdc and it worked. This is to me not a sign of a dead drive but rather some residual left over from a previous OS install.

(In this case, I tried a dual boot win98SE and RedHat)
I'm currently getting the problem on a fresh Seagate Baraccuda IV 40 gig. The only thing on it is Win98SE on the primary partition, and I partitioned the drive using fdisk like so:
2 gig primary, extended is the rest of it, with a 3.5 gig fat32 in it and everything else is blank which I let the RedHat installer do a default partition. I've also tried partitioning it myself with no luck.

This method worked with 7.2... I don't want to have to install red hat then put SE in it. Does anybody have any further ideas?

Dear Fans! (sorry about my bad english :( )

I've spend a lot of time in this problem!

There is a new promise driver under:

http://www.promise.com/support/mix_d...&product_id=15

with this driver you could install RedHat 7.3 "without" problems!

but the mirror function (if you configure the drives for mirror) doesn't work correctly

greetings from austria

Neoblade

I've seen that solution on a couple bboards, but I don't have any of those. This happened on a junky all in one motherboard with the Maxtor drive, and now it is happening on an Asus A7V333 which has onboard RAID but I'm using the generic IDE controllers and not software raid on any of them. I'm stumped. Last night I deleted the extended partition using a win98 boot disk fdisk and it looked better in the RedHat install. Before, I was getting these weird extra <1meg partitions when I told it to do anything but that stopped when I let RedHat manage the primary/extended partition. I'm almost convinced it is Win98SE's fault.

Here is more information:
The can't re-read problem has an ignore option, when clicked twice the big error comes up, can't activate swap partition. This is the error that forces the reboot of the computer.

OK, I have a generic work around.

I booted a Mandrake install CD, and "next'd" my way to the partition part. It had my RedHat partitions on it and swap was marked as such. Mandrake couldn't activate it so I think there is a bug in the RedHat partition program or something. Anyway, I had Mandrake make the swap and other partitions (I lied to it about where I had / and /home just to get it to partition it for me).

I then rebooted and went into the RedHat installer, selected "use existing free space" and told it to use the appropriate Mandrake created partitions.

It worked.

Now why doesn't my network card have a profile in 7.3 when it worked under 7.2 :)

During the install of Redhat 8.0, sometimes you get a warning box that says "The kernel was unable to re-read the partition table on /dev/hda (Device or resource busy). I got it while not having any RAID on my system. If you get this, try waiting there for about 10 minutes and don't do anything, usually the install will continue after a ten minute wait then continuing. Also after getting passed creating the partitions, you get to the screen that says you are going to erase all information and Install RedHat if you press next (or something like that), a warning box comes up again that says, "The kernel was unable to re-read the partition table on /dev/hda (Device or resource busy)." wait there for about 10 minutes too and don't do anything, usually it will continue after that. If the box comes up again, give it another 10 minutes then try to continue again. I successfuly reproduced the error and work aroud twice. If after the install completion reboot, the system hangs up... go through the install again, now the install should recognize the partitions and install fine. you might want to format your partitions again and then continue. I've tried this twice and the results were reproduceable. Giving the kernel or process time to think made the difference. Hope it helps.

sometimes it is more than knowledge
 

I installed RedHat 7.3 sucessfully with PROMISE Driver .. mirror works, stripe too!!

RedHat 8.0 :D there is no promise support from promise.com ... shit happens ... or not?

I succesfully compiled a new kernel in redhat 8.0 with ATA RAID support ... i still worked a lot of time for this but now it works ... my opinion is that the function of ATA Raid doesn't work in the same way as promise fasttrack driver works ... i mean promise fasttrack mount the harddisk to /dev/sdaX and ata RAID to /dev/ataraid/d0pX ... :study:

reach your plans ... RTF

neoblade

EMF9, If you formatted the whole drive as NTFS I don't think you can install linux, you need a FAT partition to work from. (or until MS gives up the source code for NTFS)