Please someone to assist me...

G

gatos_2004

Geek Trainee
Hi there,

I need some help on something I want to do..., but I am not sure if it will
damage my system.

Ok..I have an extended partition in my hard drive with like 18Gb of memory. I have
linux installed in it as three logical drives that linux created automatically when
it was installed, total memory of three logical drives is about 5GB. Now, I want to edit
my extended partition with Fdisk and create three more logical drives
that I want to use to install other linux versions...now

Fdisk does not recognize the linux partition, and it says there are no logical drives
specified within this extended partition. I am afraid that if I create more logical drives even by leaving space
for the linux logical drives, it will format or damage my linux installation somehow.
I am aware there might be some programs that create more logical drives without risking
other logical drivers.

Any suggestion ??? ...Thanks
 
gatos_2004 said:
Fdisk does not recognize the linux partition, and it says there are no logical drives
specified within this extended partition. I am afraid that if I create more logical drives even by leaving space
for the linux logical drives, it will format or damage my linux installation somehow.
I am aware there might be some programs that create more logical drives without risking
other logical drivers...
Click to expand...
By fdisk, do you mean the old DOS fdisk (like the one found in the Win9x boot disks), or the GNU one for *nix? The 16-bit fdisk for DOS only recognises relatively small partitions that are either a) unformatted, b) FAT16, or c) FAT32. You need a more powerful tool to be able to modify or resize a EXT2/3 or Journalized filesystem. There's *TONS* of GNU tools that can do the job. I prefer SystemRescueCD. It's a Swiss-Army knife of powerful tools to help fix and maintenance all kinds of operating systems (Unix, Linux, Win32, DOS, OS2, BSDs, etc). And, it's free of course. :)
 
Anti-Trend said:
By fdisk, do you mean the old DOS fdisk (like the one found in the Win9x boot disks), or the GNU one for *nix? The 16-bit fdisk for DOS only recognises relatively small partitions that are either a) unformatted, b) FAT16, or c) FAT32. You need a more powerful tool to be able to modify or resize a EXT2/3 or Journalized filesystem. There's *TONS* of GNU tools that can do the job. I prefer SystemRescueCD. It's a Swiss-Army knife of powerful tools to help fix and maintenance all kinds of operating systems (Unix, Linux, Win32, DOS, OS2, BSDs, etc). And, it's free of course. :)
Click to expand...

I am not sure the exact description for Fdisk, what I do is I boot up from a Win 98 boot up disk and I type fdisk...and that is all .Do you think this my affect my linux installation???

with respect to SystemRescueCD, is that a program for linux???? It is kind of hard to install a program in linux, maybe there is a version for windows but I just can't find it.
I saw once a program I believe called MagicPartition it was kind of cool but I forgot where I saw it.
 
gatos_2004 said:
I am not sure the exact description for Fdisk, what I do is I boot up from a Win 98 boot up disk and I type fdisk...and that is all ... with respect to SystemRescueCD, is that a program for linux???? It is kind of hard to install a program in linux, maybe there is a version for windows but I just can't find it.
Click to expand...
OK. First off, that version of fdisk is completely worthless, and is incapable of helping you out in any way, so you may as well disgard it. It was a quick and dirty tool that was never that great and now it's completely obsolete. :D

Regarding the SystemRescueCD, it's a '.bin' file, which means it's an image of a CD. In this case, a bootable one. What you have to do is use a burner program that can handle '.bin' images, and burn it to a CD (as an image, not just by copying the .bin to a CD). Nero Burning ROM and Clone CD are examples of Windows software that can burn .bin images, and eRoaster and M3KB are examples of Linux software that can burn 'em.

Once you have the SystemRescueCD created, you simply boot to it (instead of your Win98 floppy) and run the included tool 'GNU Parted'. Earlier you mentioned Partition Magic (which is a retail program). If you prefer that type of interface, you can use QTparted to do the job. QTparted is also included and is a clone of Partition Magic.
 
Anti-Trend said:
OK. First off, that version of fdisk is completely worthless, and is incapable of helping you out in any way, so you may as well disgard it. It was a quick and dirty tool that was never that great and now it's completely obsolete. :D
Click to expand...

Hey Thanks,... I didn't know that method using Win 98 boot up disk was obsolete. It was actually recommended by a friend not very experienced just like me.

I was actually able to create a logical drive within my extended partition
and I did it using administrative tools---Computer Management. I allocate 3.72GB to install in Linux Redhat 9. I already have in the same hard drive and
in the same extended Partition Mandrake 9.2 and I figure that I wanted to have redhat also.

My issue now is that I can't install linux within the partition 3.75GB logical drive. I was hoping that linux will create its three logical drives automatically and distribute them among 3.75GB of memory. When I run the installation it says that the other linux partition (SWAP) corresponding to Mandrake is going to be formatted...

I am sorry if this does not make much sense, I am just a biginner...please write any suggestions...
 
gatos_2004 said:
...I am sorry if this does not make much sense, I am just a biginner...please write any suggestions...
Click to expand...
It's OK, everyone starts out somewhere. I was a n00b once too. :)

I think it's fair to tell you that version of Red Hat is pretty old, considering it's still called Red Hat. ;) Red Hat corperation has shifted its focus on its enterprise-class products, and have deferred the desktop OS to a project called Fedora. Each version is designated by a core number, and Core 2 is due for release any time.

If you still want to install RH9, you have to either create a '/' partition and a swap partition manually, or just tell Anaconda (the RH installer) to use empty disc space. I don't remember the exact terminology, since I haven't done any RH installs in a while.
 
Anti-Trend said:
It's OK, everyone starts out somewhere. I was a n00b once too. :)

I think it's fair to tell you that version of Red Hat is pretty old, considering it's still called Red Hat. ;) Red Hat corperation has shifted its focus on its enterprise-class products, and have deferred the desktop OS to a project called Fedora. Each version is designated by a core number, and Core 2 is due for release any time.
Click to expand...

Hey...sounds good to me, I think I 'll just use empty disk space,

anyways I almost forgot there is a message...that comes up and I says
something like...
---The boot (???) might not be compartible with your hardware, we recommend to create a bootup disk--

I am not sure if I should ignore this...and continue
 
If you have a floppy drive, might as well take 30 seconds and let it make a boot disk. If not, Ignore it & continue...
 
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