Hi all,


I have tried to install slackware 13.37 on my laptop but it is not taking the partitions. I am planning to install it on a dual boot along with my windows 7


The partition table will be some what like this

/dev/sda1 windows 7 default system partition
/dev/sda2 My c: drive
/dev/sda3 My D: drive

the rest is all empty space

i created an extended partition on the remaining space. in the extended partition i creared a / and a swap partition but the setup is not detecting the swap partition


Thanks in advance
Hamerins

mkswap /dev/sdax
swapon /dev/sdax

x - the number of your swap partition

Afterwards, you might need to update your /etc/fstab file.

I forgot to tell on thing the setup is not detecting both the swap and / partitions. when we select add swap it shows a message that there is no swap partition created do you want to create it first. As for the / it shows that there is no root partition do you want to create it on /dev/sda5

Actually the partition for / is /dev/sda5p1 and for swap is /dev/sda5p2

I guess you fdisked a partition, not the disk probably using fdisk /dev/sda5 instead of fdisk /dev/sda

I've seen this (sda5p1 and sda5p2) once before where I did it wrong as well.

If you have windows 7 on your laptop, you must
be aware that it takes up the entire disk.
There should be already 2 partitions.
One (the big one) is where the system is installed.
The second (a small one) is a recovery system partition.

The first thing you should (have) do(ne) is to make some
room on your disk to create new partitions for your linux
system.

The easiest way to do this is by using gparted from a live linux system.
I suggest you try Parted Magic
(http://partedmagic.com/doku.php)
Download the iso file and either
burn the iso to a cd-rom
(It is also possible to install to a usb stick)

Basically you need to resize the main partition, then
move the smaller partition next to it.
Once you have done that (and saved the changes) you need
to reboot in windows so that it will launch a check disk.

Next you boot from a linux system and use fdisk to create
new partitions (/dev/sda3, /dev/sda4) for your linux system
and a swap partition.

I have pasted the fdisk -l output here. i have a 100gb partition left to install slackware but i am not able to partition it using cfdisk or fdisk.
The partition which i created is not even detected by the slackware installation

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units =

sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes /

512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x3f5c0994


Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/sda1 * 2048 206847 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

/dev/sda2 206848 137994239 68893696 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

/dev/sda3 137994240 767139839 314572800 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Do you get any errors when you try to create it in fdisk/cfdisk? Perhaps you've not written the changes, ie the partition has not been created at all. Mind you, you already have 3 primary partitions. The next one should be of the "extended" type to let you create more partitions and should take up all the remaining space. If you have problems with fdisk, you could use a live cd which contains gparted, which is a simple GUI partitioning tool.

If the above is true (and from your fdisk output it is), how do you know the below?
As I said before, I'm quite sure you fdisked a partition instead of a disk. Which tool did you use for the partitioning (Windows fdisk, Windows disk manager, Linux fdisk, ...)? Can you give the steps that you did?

And I would not worry; from your fdisk output it looks like you can simply create the extended partition again. Once you have that, fdisk will automatically create the logical partitions in there when you create new partitions. Basically what sycamorex states.

What does windows disk manager say about it? You can create the partitions in there as well; to save time, don't format them because the slackware install will do so as well.

I googled a bit and found that cfdisk have less support to partition extended logical drives. So i turned Back to My Favorite partitioning tool FDISK and Created the partition. Also i installed it successfully.