CFDISK problem, FATAL ERROR
 

I just do not get why CFDISK does not allow me to modify this disk I get a black screen in my console with the following at the bottom

FATAL ERROR
Cannot open disk drive
Press any key to continue

I am trying to remove hdb2 as even when I get it mounted and set up an icon (added to FSTAB) it still gives me an error. It seems that even if I use FDISK and remove #2 it removes both #2 and #5. Something seems wrong. It should not take the same start and end points...right?

Disk /dev/hdb: 3228 MB, 3228696576 bytes
128 heads, 63 sectors/track, 782 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 8064 * 512 = 4128768 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 121 487840+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/hdb2 122 782 2665152 5 Extended
/dev/hdb5 * 122 782 2665120+ 83 Linux

Also

Also I am trying to get Open Office to install but I have no room left. From the above is there any way to tell what space I have left? Is there anything like Windows explorer that would show each drive with the space available. My drive icons on my desktop do not seem to help.

If I check each desktop icon hda1 hdb1 or hdd5 they all say the same thing 95% used, 144mb/2.5gb...yet they are all different sized drives as per the below...so why do I see them all as 2.5GB via their ICONS on the desktop??

My full FDISK looks like this

Disk /dev/hdd: 1281 MB, 1281181696 bytes
64 heads, 63 sectors/track, 620 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 4032 * 512 = 2064384 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdd1 1 620 1249888+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/hda: 2564 MB, 2564352000 bytes
128 heads, 63 sectors/track, 621 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 8064 * 512 = 4128768 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 621 2503840+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/hdb: 3228 MB, 3228696576 bytes
128 heads, 63 sectors/track, 782 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 8064 * 512 = 4128768 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 121 487840+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/hdb2 122 782 2665152 5 Extended
/dev/hdb5 * 122 782 2665120+ 83 Linux

Thanks in advance as I am new to the world of LINUX

I'm not sure I followed all that. hda5 is a logical drive 'in' the extended hda2. You can delete 5 and then 2, but you can't delete 2 without taking 5 with it. And you shouldn't be trying to mess with partitioning in a regular run mode, if that's what you're doing.

And if you want to know how much space you've got left, do 'df -h' or something of the sort.

Thanks for the reply. Basically I thought there was a problem because I could never view what was on hdb2. I guess I am not supposed to...it just did not make sense to my windows brain. So hdb2 is where the rest of the logical drives would be...I could have hdb5 and hdb6 in hdb2?

Also I do not know what you mean by "regular run mode". I was trying this logged in as root on my GUI desktop.

Thanks for the df command that will help lots!!!!

Yep. :) Linux reserves the first 4 for primary drives. So even if you have one primary (hda1) and one extended (hda2) it assigns hda2 to the extended and begins numbering logical volumes at hda5. And it goes on from there, just like you say. So there is no hda2 to 'see', as it just holds 5, 6, and so on.

As far as runlevel, I mean that there's multi-user modes, halt/reboot, and single-user modes, though the runlevel numbers and initialization procedures differ from distro to distro. Under normal circumstances, you boot into a multi-user mode, whether CLI or graphical. Now that I'm thinking about it again, I'm not sure. Maybe I did do some repartitioning on a live system in multi-user mode, but I'm pretty sure you need to be in single user mode. Or at least you have to unmount the partitions you're working on. Something like that. *g*

And no problem - df's great. :)

So here is a f/u questions. If the 1st 4 are reserved, in my setup I have hda, hdb and hdd...does that mean I will always have an hda1, hdb1 and hdd1 and that if I partition any of those drives like hdd for example into 3 partitions I would have a hdd1, hdd2 (but not really a partition), hdd5 and hdd6?

In my FDISK above do I only see hdd1 because I only set up one partition?

Yeah - each disk is labelled separately. Like I have hda1, hda2 <hda5, hda6, hda7>, because I installed Mandrake briefly and it automatically did an extended partition, and an hdb1, hdb2, hdb3, and hdb4 because that's how I did it with fdisk when I installed Slack. But if I had an extended partition on hdb, it would contain hdb5 and so on, just like hda.

-- Crap. I misunderstood the last part of that. Yeah - if you do just have one partition, you'll just see one partition.

Last one

lets say I have one drive...hda and I split it into 2 primary partitions would I then have hda1 and hda2? And if so could I mount hda2 and view its contents?

or hda is split into 1 primary and 1 extended partition so they are still named hda1 and hda2 but I do not create any logical drives in hda2 will I still be able to mount and view the contents on hda2? Do I need to make logical drives in order for it to be useable as an extended partition?

In my case of the 3 drives, 1 3.5 gb, 1 2.5gb and 1.2gb what would you say would be the best layout for an install?

Thanks for all your help!!!

Yep. 2 primaries would mean hdb2 would be the partition itself, and not just an extended 'container'. I mean, it *is* the partition, either way, but the 'logical' layer of hdb5 would be removed.

If you create an extended (hda2) without defining one or more logicals (hda5+) then it's useless, I think. You wouldn't be able to store files on it. You could define hda5 to take the whole of hda2, but that would be pretty pointless. ;) So, yep, to the second part, too.

Hm. Depends on the distro and what you installed and how you were going to use it. And who you ask, because everybody's going to have different answers. Also how much RAM you have and how much swap space you'd want. It doesn't need to be 'twice your RAM' but the RAM is a factor. I'd have to know more about what your circumstances were.

I have 192MB of RAM on a PII300. I am running an install of Knoppix 3.2 right now. I am open to suggestions. I did not like JAMD (redhat based) and Mandrake 9.1 seemed slow (Think I had too much KDE eye candy on). I have tons of Windows experience and just starting out with Linux which is why I am only commiting my spare parts at this time.

Next time I fdisk my drives I will be sure to make my life simple and probably just make 2 primaries per drive, hda1 and hda2...

Thanks

Okay. Well, I use Slack, so you know what I'm gonna say, right? :D Seriously, for older machines, something like Slack or Vector is a good choice, but I'm sure others will jump in with suggestions. Just as a ballpark, I'll pretend you're trying Slack and say a couple hundred megs of swap should be plenty. Hard disk space is probably more of an issue than loads of swap. I'm using about 110 megs of my 512 now, with fluxbox, mozilla, xmms, gkrellm, several eterms, a text editor somewhere, a calculator, etc.

Ugh. I've thought about this for awhile and I'm not sure. Maybe put root on the small one, try to squeeze /usr on the middle, slice out a couple hundred megs of the large one for swap and use the rest as /home? You may not need to worry about /var and /tmp, depending. Or maybe do swap and /usr on the largest one and /home on the middle? Something like that would probably be simplest.