RH9 partitioning problems
 

Hi,

I have just got a brand new 2.4GHz computer with 1GB RAM and a 150GB HD. I have set up windows XP and the partitions as follows:

15GB Primary Active Windows XP + applications
15GB Primary __ Backup of Windows XP + applications
80GB Logcal __ Contains my data

this leaves me with 40GB which i want to use for Red Hat 9. However when i get to the partitioning part o the RH9 installation, using either automatic or manual partitioning it come up with the error that says i have not defiened a / partition and installation cannot continue.

When using automatic partitioning i have tried selecting use free space (same error) then i tried to formar the free space as ext3 and try again using delete all linux partitions option (same problem).

I would be very grateful if someone could help me sort this out so i can start to ditch microsofts bug filled software and become a linux head!!

Thanks in advance

Muffamatician

Well, It would help to know exactly how the drive is partitioned.

How many actual primary partitions do you have?
How big is the extended partition.

I don't know what XP uses for creating partitions and I don't think diskmanager will tell you how big the extended partition is. If you don't have access to Partition Magic I would boot the install CD and select rescue or recovery mode or whatever Redhat calls it.

Then use the command fdisk -l (thats a small L) to list all of the partitions. Go ahead and post the results.

FYI: You can only have 4 primary partitions. An extended partition is a place holder for logical drives. And you can have I think up to 64 logical drives.

My guess is that your extended partition might not be 40gb i.e. the remaing free space on your hard drive. The usual min configuration is two partitions i.e. a root / and a swap partition. But Redhats min autopartition is 3. i.e. /boot, / (root) and a swap partition.

So even though you have free space you can't partition the drive as desired.

If you were successfull formating the drive as ext3 you can during select to install to those partitions instead of deleting linux partitions option which will cause the same problems.

With 1gb of RAM you can probably do without a swap partiton if you don't run RAM instensive servers or applications.

Drive C is the first partition - it is 15Gb, it is a primary partition and it is FAT32

The next drive (which i have labeled as drive Z) is exactly the same size and type as the C drive (and i was planning on periodically copying the entire C drive to the Z drive as a backup. Also i thought that if i have the Z drive as primary, then if the C drive gets messed up i will still be able to boot from the Z drive by just changing the active partition.

Next there is an 80GB extended primary drive. Within this i have an 80GB logical drive (which i have called the S drive - which i wanted to use for my data)

This leaves 40GB unallocated at the end of the drive. In partition magic it says this is also primary. This is where i want linux to reside.

FYI i do have partition magic 8.02

Thanks, Muffs

If there's a partition in the last 40GB, delete it. Then you should be able to make a few new partitions for Linux. The partitions are then formatted.

The best way would to delete the 40gb partition and then resize the extended partition to the end of the drive. Then let Redhat auto partition the free space.

If that doesn't work then your only other choice would be to select the 40gb partition as / (root) and not use a swap partition. But since you have 1gb RAM you really shouldn't have a problem.

I have never tried to resize an extented partition so I don't know what will happen. You might be forced to delete it to resize the extended partition. Buts that is what you really want to do.

When you try to auto-partition the free space do you get a

Boot constraints error??

ie Red Hat will warn you that the current partitioning shceme might cause later boot problems.