I am attempting to install Slackware. I downloaded and burned the 4 CDs. I was unable to boot from CD#1 for whatever reason (either I am not supposed to be able to, or there is a problem with the CD or drive), so I created the 3 floppies: boot, install1, and install2. I was able to boot from the floppies and log in as root. I need to partition the drive, but when I try to start fdisk or cfdisk (e.g., 'fdisk /dev/hdx'), I get a message stating that there is no such file or directory.

Thanks in advance for any help.

You haven't put fdisk in the floppy. Why don't you try booting from the CD? Go to your bios settings (usually by pressing "del" during startup).

If your bios doesn't support booting from the CD, then create a symlink to fdisk in your floppy. You will have to mount the cd first.

Also, creating a floppy is not a simple task. Do you have good experience with linux? How did you manage?

Thanks for your reply. My Linux experience is very limited; for example, I wouldn't know how to put fdisk on a floppy or how to mount the CD drive.

My bios supports booting from CD. I set the boot sequence to CDROM/C/A (the only choice when booting from CD). The bios reports a failure to boot from CD, then proceeds to boot from C (to Windows). There doesn't seem to be any boot files on the CD, just these files:
slackware-10.2-install-d1.iso
slackware-10.2-install-d1.iso.asc
slackware-10.2-install-d1.iso.md5

I then thought to boot from floppy, so I created 3 floppies using rawritexp.exe with bare.i, install.1, and install.2. It seems to boot OK, but the fdisk and cfdisk are nowhere to be found.

Also, I want to avoid using Partition Magic or Partition Commander if possible. My reason being that most of the information I have found seem to suggest this.

you have the proper files, but you need to burn the .iso (image file) to
the CD. Simply put, the .iso file contains all the files you need, and in
burning the image to a CD, you will not have an .iso file, you will have
boot files, setup files, installation files, etc.

"create disk from iso image" or something like that is what you want to do,
THEN boot to the CD. (also do it for CD#2, 3.. or how many ever you have).

-tw

Thanks for the help. As you can see, I am also new to burning.

I wrote the image files to the CD, was able to boot from CD, and am now in the process of partitioning the hard drive with cfdisk.

Glad to hear. Any questions, hit the slackware forum.
Good luck!
-tw