Re: Installing Linux on 3.8 Gig drive

[CHRIS SARTLER <CSARTLER OLS-INC COM>]

Roy Stogner wrote:
> 
>         I've finally decided to get some use out of the extra 2 gigs of space
> on my new hard drive, and am trying to install Linux.  However, this
> new drive is currently partitioned and used in what I assume is a
> non-standard way by my computer, and I can't get the Linux
> installation CD to figure it out.
> 
>         I'm using a 1995 Packard Bell Pentium 100 (don't laugh) with a 1992
> BIOS... which normally is unable to recognize large hard drives
> (larger than 1024 cylinders, I think).  The hard drive is a 3.8 Gig
> Maxtor 83840 A6: 4092 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors.  The drive came
> with a disk to set up the program EZ-BIOS, which *must* be run before
> the hard drive will be recognized by DOS/Win3.11 - even when booting
> from a floppy it is necessary to at least run EZ-BIOS first or the
> drive appears non-existant.
> 
>         This works fine for DOS/Win3.11, but I need to know how to perform the
> same tricks with Linux.  I got "The Complete redhat Linux operating
> system" (redhat Linux 4.1, I think), and after skimming the manual ran
> the installer.
> 
>         At first, I ran the installer with my HDD partitioned into 1 Primary
> DOS partition (~2 Gigs) and 1 Extended DOS partition (~1.8 gigs) with
> a single logical drive on the Extended partition.  When I did this,
> and got to the "run Linux fdisk" part of the install, fdisk
> immediately quit and kicked me back to the install program.
> 
>         I tried using DOS fdisk to remove the Extended partion, then returned
> to the install.  This time, I was able to enter fdisk, but upon
> running the "verify partition" command got the following messages:
> 
> Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
>         phys=(511,127,63) logical=(1023,63,63)
> Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary:
>         phys=(511,127,63) should be (511,63,63)
> Partition 1: previous sectors 4128767 disagrees with total 2064447
> Total allocated sectors 4128706 greater than the maximum 4124736
> 
> Since I've never had any problems with this drive, I assume that these
> wierd partition settings are the workaround that Maxtor's EZ-BIOS was
> using.
> 
> Now, how do I get this to work with Linux?  I need to have 1.6-2 gigs
> on my hard drive for DOS/Windows, I'd like to have whatever's left
> over for Linux.
> 
> Thank you all for any help.
> ---
> Roy Stogner
> 
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Ray: the reason you are receving these messages is due to the different
allocation methods of the 2 FDISK programs. The DOS fdisk program will
allocate in megabytes while the Linux fdisk allocates in cylinders or
blocks. the message is just telling you that your other DOS partitions
did not end on a cylinder boundary. You can either do some math,
reallocate them, and then re-install your operating system, or you can
ignore the errors and live with a little wasted disk space. You should
be  all right if you chose option 2.