help partitioning hard drive

September 10, 2005 2:30 PM

I'm trying to install Red-Hat Linux on my computer but I'm having problems when I get to the step about partitioning the hard drive.

I previously had created an 870 mb partition in my hard drive to install it on and when I try to further partition it using disk druid I get an error message that says something to the extent of "boot partition>1024 cylinders" when I choose a linux native partition type. (the swap partition works okay)

posted by martinX's bellbottoms to computers & internet (9 comments total)

When I installed a dual boot with Red Hat and XP, I used this tutorial:

http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html

It sounds like you haven't created the partition below cylinder 1024, which is necessary. The tutorial walks you through it.
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 2:39 PM on September 10, 2005

Your (old) computer with a relatively new hard drive has some limits on where bootable partitions can be. See here for some advice. You'll either need to turn on LBA in your BIOS setup screen, or follow options 1. or 2. on that page.
posted by jellicle at 2:43 PM on September 10, 2005

i know you didn't ask about this, but you may find 870 mb to be pretty crowded ... you might want 3-5 gigs ...
posted by pyramid termite at 5:01 PM on September 10, 2005

ok...
some more fiddling around based on jellicle's and derive's advice led me to believe that i have a hidden partition, which starts somewhere before and ends somewhere after the all important 1024th cylinder. FIPS, the repartitioning software ive been using doesnt even notice it. and so now i need advice about how to move/delete it. Unless of course you think i have a different problem...
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 5:15 PM on September 10, 2005

You will hate life with only 870M.

You don't need to put /boot below cylinder 1024 anymore. That's an old BIOS limitation that doesn't really even apply if your BIOS can handle LBA32. Disk druid will complain anyway, just ignore it and see how it goes. As long as you don't destroy your other partitions, and you set your bootloader up to see your other operating system during the install you won't lose anything but time by trying it out.

Don't use LILO, use GRUB.
posted by cmonkey at 5:49 PM on September 10, 2005

First: what version of Red Hat, what CPU and how much RAM?
posted by davy at 10:00 PM on September 10, 2005

It's Red-Hat 7.1, a pentium 3 with 382 mb of RAM.
I realize 80 megs isn't enough, but I can't partition any more, which is really where I'm having problems.
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 4:39 AM on September 11, 2005

I think you'd have fewer problems with a more recent version of Linux, especially one designed for older computers (Damn Small Linux is one I've used on older laptops). Distrowatch is a good place to get information and to find links to download sites.

One Fedora based distro I've been hearing good things about is blag. Haven't tried it.
posted by QIbHom at 12:44 PM on September 11, 2005

I second QIbHom's advice. Damn Small Linux also doesn't need much RAM so it should run really fast on your machine. You would however be sacrificing a bit of the graphical "bells & whistles".

One thing you might try is Live CD like Ubuntu (DistroWatch's highest rated) that won't need your hard drive at all. Damn Small Linux also runs as a live CD -- easily.
posted by davy at 11:13 PM on September 14, 2005