disk druid doldrums-urgent

[bonaire]

Hi
I wiped my 20GB drive to repartition it in preparation for setting up a dual boot win2k/red hat 9 laptop. I installed win2k(after offloading my data) and set up 3 partitions:
1) ntfs 5gb for win2k
2) fat32 5 gb for shared files
3) unpartitioned space 10gb for red hat
I am having problems with disk druid during the red hat 9 install. I see my ntfs partition on /hda and Extended partition is created on /hda2. My vfat partition shows up under Extended as 5gb. I have to put /boot w/in the first 1024 cylinders but it will not allow me to add a new ext3 partition to /hda and if I try to place it on the Extended partition it is after the vfat share, and cannot be placed
within 1024 cyliners. If I delete the Extended partition then I can put /boot w/in 1024.(by the way the force to become primary partition checkbox is not working)If I do that I can set up the /boot partition, but now I have lost the FAT32 partition. When I add a new partition of type vfat it only lets me add one up to 2048MB. Help! What I am doing wrong? The automatic partition option places /boot past 1024 cylinders and I am left with the same conundrum. Bonaire

 

[zeland]

Look like you'll need partition magic or similar tools to create an empty space of about 100MB for the /boot partiton after your Win2k partition. Everything else i.e. "/", "/home", swap etc can be placed in the 10GB space at the end.

The 1024 Cyl limitation is normally HDD space after 8GB. Any boot partitions (the whole partition and part of it) should be creatated below the 8GB line.

 

[zeland]

My last paragraph should read:
Any boot partitions (the whole partition and NOT part of it) should be creatated below the 8GB line.

Sorry for the typo!!

 

[bonaire]

Hey
I fixed this problem by going into the Disk Management Tool of win2k and did followig:
- deleted all but win2k ntfs partition
-created 100mb unformatted partition
-re-created FAT32 share partition
-left all rest free space
Then in red hat I was able to reformat the 100mb as ext3 and placed /boot there(w/in 1024 cyclinders) and went on to create swap and / in free space.
I used LILO BTW(but may switch to GRUB)-- and have read too many bad posts about Partition Magic to even spend 20$ on ebay.

 

[zeland]

I suggested Partion Magic as I thought you had data on the 5GB FAT32 partition. Anyways, you reached the same solution, only through a diffrent path.