Usual partitioning/cylinder problems from an ignoramus.
 

Howdy.

I'm having problems setting up a dual-boot system.. the problem being that I've already taken up the first 30Gb of my 40Gb HDD with Windows XP.. and hence I can't squeeze a Linux boot partition into the first 8Gb/1024 cylinders or whatever it is..

The thing is -- I installed it before with Windows98, with the same partitioning sizes and I could get it working ? Could it be that NTFS hinders the installation process whereas Linux could weasel its way around the FAT32 partition beforehand ?

What must I do to fix this ..

- Do I have to dismantle the current WindowsXP partition and squeeze the Linux boot partition into the first 8Gb.. ?

- If I bought a new HDD and dedicated it to Linux (last resort at the moment).. would I be able to setup the boot partition on that HDD.. or MUST the boot partition be in the first 8Gb of the PRIMARY HDD ?..

Thunk yuh.

The 1024 limit is now pretty much a non issue. The only problems you could have with it are:

(1) You have a really old BIOS that can't boot past 1024 - I haven't ever seen a system with a 40G drive with that problem.

(2) You are using a distro of Linux with an old version of lilo - get a newer version! You could even use the distro you have already, use a boot disk to get in to it, then manually upgrade lilo from source.

I knew I'd leave out an important fine detail..

The problem I'm having -- (and where the Linux install crashes).. is with Disk Druid in particular.

I have the 10Gb free at the end of the HDD. I first create my Swap file.. and I try to create a Linux native partition that uses up all the available space, mount it onto the root directory (I don't need to create a particular partition for the /boot directory, hm ?).. and then Disk Druid complains that I'm over the 1024 cylinder, crashes, and exits.

.. mind you, I've installed the same distro', Redhat 7.1.. onto the same computer before and it's worked. The only difference is that now the primary partition is an NTFS one whereas beforehand it was FAT32.

Any ideas ?

Have you tried using fdisk instead of Disk Druid during the install? Redhat has instructions on their website for doing so.