Hi!

My problem is that I can't install linux properly. I can partition the harddrive, and the installation process begins, but at the end it says something like...that device 0x03xxx(something) exceeds 1024 cylinders. It says that I need a boot disk to be able to boot linux. I've tryed partitioning the hardrive with Disk Druid...given it small partitions. Even tryed fdisk to see to that the boot partition doesn't excedd 1024 cylinders. What am I doing wrong.

Can someone give me detailed description of how to partition my harddrive. I need a good example that should work. I have a 20 Gb harddrive but I only want to use 10 Gb for linux.

Please help!

search this forum for info on the lilo cylinder issue.

easier to jsut get a newer version of redhat, that's and old version now.

it is true that RH7.1 is really an old distro now. but what u want can be done. i need to know what kind of hardware u have.

making small partitions is perfectly allright, but not needed. the problem lies with ur bios. if the bios is post year 2k, then it is supposed to allow booting from beyond 1024 cylinders.

i need to know where is your linux partition located? my guess is the partition containing linux is on the second half of the 20GB drive.

if the bios is post year2k, then let the install complete. then make a boot floppy when asked for. after complete install boot from the boot disk created, and edit /etc/lilo.conf

add the line "lba32" (without the double qoutes...), run /bin/lilo.

now ur lilo should work as expected.

Well the thing is that I tryed to only have linux on my harddrive. So there's no other OS right now. The strange thing is that it worked before, now it doesn't seem to do so.

I tryed to start linux with the bootdisk but doesn't seem to find any linux in /dev/hdb5. I think that it's the default location to look at???

Well I tryed to change the location to /dev/hda1, /dev/hda2 etc.
nothing works...

My computer is a Compaq Presario 5900T, 733 MHz(Intel PIII).
Found this in Compaq's homepage:

http://web14.compaq.com/falco/sp_det...Software=33721

Maybe this will help some???

Thanks!!!

u did not write if u have linux on the second half of ur 20GB drive. see this is important.....

well from ur reply it seems that due to some reason the linux was not installed properly. if u dont have any data (which i guess should be the case.....) reinstall the os, and this time make partitions with fdisk. the option is asked during installation. remember to make a swap partition of approximately double ur RAM size. i.e if u have 128MB of RAM make a swap of 250 to 275 MB.

and do not forget to make a new boot disk. note down the drive notation that the installer detects.... /devhda(Primary Master) or /dev/hdb(Primary Slave). Sometimes it so happens that the hdd is installed in the secondary IDE Cable. so check it out.

before doing all this, try booting with ur existing boot disk. press ctrl+x at the lilo screen, and u will get a prompt like this boot:
pass the following parameter--

linux root=/dev/hda1

see if it works. if not reinstall linux again and make the partitions as mentioned above..... DO NOT FORGET TO MAKE A NEW BOOT DISK


hope this works

well iwent to the site of compaq.. it seems that ur bios will allow booting from beyond 1024 cylinders. so it is OK. try what i wrote above and tell me.

Good Luck!!!!!!

Hi again!

Well I was wondering, is it the boot partition which has to be below 1024 cylinders?

I have two harddrives. If I make a partition of 12 Gb at the beginning of the second drive, for linux. How do I have to do to make it work with Windows on the other??

Drive 1: 20 Gb Drive 2: 30 Gb
Windows XP 12 Gb for linux


What do I need. Assume the both are disks are empty. What to do??

Thanks!!!

yes u r right. the boot partition must be below 1024 cylinders.
but ur system seems to be post year 2000, and thus this is not that important. the bios should support booting from eyond 1024 cylinders......

what u do is repartiton ur drives as follows:

drive 1: entire win xp
drive 2: the first 12 GB to linux, and the rest to win XP or something else.

remember to make a boot disk for linux.

during installation, if ur WIN XP is the upgrade win 98 version, then install win98, then install linux and then upgrade win98 to winXP. in this manner u can preserve ur MBR.

after u install linux, boot the system with the linux bootable, and then edit /etc/lilo.conf as mentioned in the last post. DO NOT FORGET to add the line lba32 in /etc/lilo.conf......

then run lilo from the command prompt.

try booting the system.... lilo must work.

then upgrade win98 to winXP. this time the installer for winXP does not make any changes to the MBR.

try this and good luck again

The strange thing is the many times when I tryed to install linux, it complains that the boot partition is past 1024 cylinder. How come?

Ok, I have both drives empty. But the installation of Win XP is from scratch, no upgrade.
How do I do in this case???

Does is work better with Red Hat 7.2??

Thanks!

well that is no problem. let it report that the booting is from beyond 1024 cylinders.. just be sure to make a boot disk.

if u have to install win XP from scratch then i guess install winXp first and then install linux. still make boot disks.

always install a microsoft product and then install linux. as microsoft always thinks that your hard disk is its playground. so always install microsoft os es first.

During the install choose manual partition using diskdruid, the first partition you make will make will be on your second drive, probably "hdb" and it will be a 50meg /boot partition
then your /
then your swap
/win use remaining space

so when you are done the diskdruid window for hdb should look like:

/boot 50meg
/ 12g
swap 256meg
/win what is leftover, filesystem type fat32, used by both windows and linux

always make your /boot partition first.

I always install lilo on the MBR of first drive; hda, make sure you make a boot disk.


the harddrive designations might be different for your system:
hda = master primary ide controller
hdb = slave primary ide controller
hdc = master secondary ide controller ( usally cdrom )
hdd = slave secondary ide controller