Building My First Computer and Ran Into Problem...

[34c]

I would appreciate if someone can help me out with my problem. I am building my first computer and want to install Red hat Linux 9 on it.

I have put all the hardware together and it seems to start up fine. I am now in the process of partitioning the hard drive.

I have a 80gb harddrive. I typed in fdisk at command prompt and created a primary DOS partition the C: drive with 2gb. I then made that the active partition.

I then created an extended partition called D: and put the rest of the space in the extended partition.

After that was done I exited fdisk and was told to restart the computer.

When it came back up I get a screen that says:

F1 . . . Dos
F2 . . . ??

Default: F2

I can't press any keys or anything. Only thing I can do is restart by (control, alt, delete) or reset.

What should I do?

 

[Snickle]

After partitioning the C: drive, you need to format it and transfer the operating system onto it. To do so, boot to the floppy and type format /s c: and press Enter.

To format the second partition you'll need a boot disk from Win95B/95C/98/ME for that large a partition.

Can't give you anything on Linux, haven't gotten around to doing one yet.

 

[xomcat]

What drive are you attempting to boot from? Your floppy or your HD?

 

[Seegee]

since you are planning on putting Red Hat on the PC you could just put the RH CD in and use it boot from and then to set the partitions and then install Linux. Linux can't use a FAT16 or FAT32 filesystem so Linux will format it as ext2 filesystem. This can all be done from the CD. You should be given a choice of using fdisk or DRUID to set the partitions for RH. I would recommend DRUID as it uses a graphical representation of the partitions.

as far as the F1 and F2 options it is probablly a setting you need to change in your BIOS

hope this helps,
Seegee

 

[34c]

I put in the Red Hat Installation CD into the CD Drive but its not doing anything. I am still getting that message on my screen.

 

[natesin]

You may have to go in to the bios on your computer and set it to boot from the CD.

regards,

Natesin

 

[franklin97355]

Go into the bios and make sure it's set to boot from the CD. Then remove all partitions. If you are going to make this a Linux box then put the First RH cd in and boot. If it does not boot to the CD you have a hardware problem, fix that first and try again.

 

[34c]

Franklin97355,

Can you show me how to remove all partitions?

 

[34c]

Does anyone know how to remove partitions?

 

[jpm121]

Run fdisk again, there's an option to destroy partition info.

 

[ImpetusEra]

I installed Red Hat 5.2 a few weeks ago, I'm sure Disk Druid has come along a little ways since then. From there you can delete the partitions. I haven't done the dual-boot with Linux and Windows but I believe you install Windows first then Linux into a separate partition, Linux naitive. You'll also need to alocate space for a Linux swap file. In the end of 5.2 installation it asked where I wanted the files placed to boot Linux. Options were MBR or beginning area of the root partition. If you pick MBR and have windows then you won't be able to boot up windows, so it would go in the Linux partiton. Also, if you put Linux boot info in the MBR and try to install windows it may not work until you reset the MBR by using fdisk /mbr or a tool that's on the Linux cd somewhere.

 

[PinitusTeX]

I see your having problems with partitions. Hmmm... who made your hard drive. Go to there site and download their diskmanager and format your drive with a single partition.

Go to the BIOS, see to it that the first boot device is set to the CD - then insert CD1 or RH9.

On the installation process, you can repartition your drive using the gui mode on Disk Druid.

Happy installin.