partitioning error installing rh9
 

I'm trying to install RH9 on a laptop w/ WinXP already installed. I have three partitions already on the drive: one small fat32 at the start, a 10 gig windows, and a 30 gig ntfs for storage. That leaves me with 16238 mb of free space at the end of the drive. I'm using disk druid to set up the partitions for linux. It lets me make a /boot partition of 102 mb leaving me w/ 16136mb of free space. However, when I try to make another partition (swap or /) I get the following error..."Could not allocate requested partitions: Partitioning failed: Could not allocate partitions." Anybody know why?

Thanks in advance.

What happens if you don't create a /boot partition? Just create the /root and /swap partitions!

By free space do you mean unpartitioned? Could not allocate ... means there is not enough free space to create the partition you are trying to configure.

Check XP's diskmanager to see how much free space is on the drive and also verify your not using a dynamic disk configuration.

In disk druid it says there is 16,xxx mb of free space, which I'm sure is unpartitioned space. It looks like there's plenty of space to me.

How do I know if I'm using a using a dynamic disk configuration?

Must I have a swap partition or can I just make a /root?

Thanks.

you MUST have at least 2 partitions in linux /boot and /swap. The usual number is 3 /boot /swap and '/' (which is the where all the data is stored)
The reason for this is that /swap uses completely different filesystem from anything else and /boot usually likes older FS (ext2 is possibly the best one for it) '/' on the other hand likes ext3 filesystem.

Actually, if you have lots of RAM you could probably get by without a swap partion and get by with only a /. And if necessary you could create a swap file instead.

XP's diskmanager should indicate if it is a dynamic disk. This does not appear to be the problem.

I see a potential for several problems. Your extended partition is only as big as the sum of the logical drives. Therefore the installer can not create additional logical drives or its trying to create more then a total of 4 primary partitions.

Can you post how the drive is partitioned? Usually windows will partition something like the following:
1st partition FAT32
2nd partition extended (This a a place holder for logical drives.)
5th partition 10 gig (logicals start at number 5)
6th partition 30 gig

I used partition magic to make space for logical drives /boot, /, /home, and swap. Then used disk druid to format the drives accordingly. The disk seems to be partitioned correctly now and it goes to the next step. What should i do about the boot loader? I've read a bunch of posts already and searched for a while and it seems like i need to copy the bootsect.lnx? file to my windows partition and edit my boot.ini file...i'm still not sure if i even need to install the boot loader since i'm using the winxp boot loader. Also, i have the little problem of not having a floppy drive on my new dell laptop...any advice about how to work around this?

So my questions again:
-If i need to install grub or lilo, where should it be installed?
-must i copy the .lnx file to my windows directory or can i dual boot some other way?
-if it is necessary, how can i work around the lack of a floppy drive?

Thanks again.

To boot linux via Windows:
http://home.ubalt.edu/abento/linux/r...ualbootNT.html

Either grub or lilo will work.

You have a FAT32 partition that you can share files between the two OS's to get around the no floppy issue. You can also boot to a rescue mode with the 1st install CD if required for repairs or to make changes.

I made the bootsect.lnx file using the rescue part of install cd 1. The file is now in the root directory. How do I put the file onto a fat32 partition I have already created?

You would need to mount the fat32 partition:

As root, in a terminal window, mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/vfat. hdax, where x is the number the vfat partition is located and you may need to create the /mnt/vfat directory before doing this.

To create the directory, type mkdir /mnt/vfat and it will be done. To copy the bootsect file.
cp /bootsect.lnx /mnt/vfat, and that should do it.

If you gonna use the bootsect.lnx file to dual boot using XP bootloader then you need to have that boosect.lnx file in the root folder of XP and then edit the boot.ini to add a line to it.

Here is an example:

c:\bootsect.lnx="Linux"

Let us know if you need more help.

I just found this link on dual booting.

thanks, i got it to load...so now the win boot loader let's me choose between win and linux...so i choose linux and it brings me to grub which boots linux and it goes through all the boot stuff w/ the last line reading "start first boot" or something like that...then the screen goes black for a few seconds...then very many small dashed purple lines start scrolling on the screen almost like the matrix screensaver...

any ideas why?

thanks.

I take it this is the first time you booted linux after the install?

What kind of video card do you have? Did you install x and did it test ok?

I didn't see an option to test during the install...but after reinstalling i've determined it's the video card selection. I have a 32MB nVidia Quadro FX Go5200, so I chose the NVIDIA Quadro FX...but I guess that's wrong. In the second install i just used whatever came up by default. It worked fine after that, but once I got in I decided to look at the other cards it had listed and I messed it up again. When I logged off of X and went to log back on to apply the changes I got the purple screen again.

So here's my question: can I change the video card selection using a text based login and how would i do that (it automatically goes to graphic)...or can I use the rescue disk to change it?

Thanks again for all the help.

so i'm in text mode now logged in as root...is there a file somewhere that i can edit to change the video card?

Its the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file. I would go to Nvidia's website and download their latest driver file. Follow their install instrutions. You will need to use a text editor like emacs or vi. To start the server from text mode type in startx.