nirvana_76
asked on
Partitioning on linux 6.x
Hi,
I'm trying to install linux 6.1 on a machine with 38GB hard disk. Windows98 is already there in the primary partition of 26GB.
I had deleted the extended partition (drive d) of 12 GB and tried to install linux. While tryin to partition this previously extended partition by "disk druid" I get:
"partition too big" for "/" and "/boot" filesystems and the allocation is unsuccesful.
I have done similar operation succesfully for a hard disk of 6 GB with windows95 on the 3 GB primary partition.
Is there a problem of original partitioning for windows98 here?
What could be the possible solutions to this?
Thanks
I'm trying to install linux 6.1 on a machine with 38GB hard disk. Windows98 is already there in the primary partition of 26GB.
I had deleted the extended partition (drive d) of 12 GB and tried to install linux. While tryin to partition this previously extended partition by "disk druid" I get:
"partition too big" for "/" and "/boot" filesystems and the allocation is unsuccesful.
I have done similar operation succesfully for a hard disk of 6 GB with windows95 on the 3 GB primary partition.
Is there a problem of original partitioning for windows98 here?
What could be the possible solutions to this?
Thanks
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SOLUTION
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The lilo that comes with redhat 6.1 requires that the boot partition be contained within the first 504MB of the disk.
eg: from /usr/src/linux/Documentati
How To Use *Big* ATA/IDE drives with Linux
--------------------------
The ATA Interface spec for IDE disk drives allows a total of 28 bits
(8 bits for sector, 16 bits for cylinder, and 4 bits for head) for addressing
individual disk sectors of 512 bytes each (in "Linear Block Address" (LBA)
mode, there is still only a total of 28 bits available in the hardware).
This "limits" the capacity of an IDE drive to no more than 128GB (Giga-bytes).
All current day IDE drives are somewhat smaller than this upper limit, and
within a few years, ATAPI disk drives will raise the limit considerably.
All IDE disk drives "suffer" from a "16-heads" limitation: the hardware has
only a four bit field for head selection, restricting the number of "physical"
heads to 16 or less. Since the BIOS usually has a 63 sectors/track limit,
this means that all IDE drivers larger than 504MB (528Meg) must use a "physical"
geometry with more than 1024 cylinders.
(1024cyls * 16heads * 63sects * 512bytes/sector) / (1024 * 1024) == 504MB
---
Linux itself does not use the bios to access the disk, so this is limited to just the boot process. If you can reparition with something like partition magic to create a linux boot partition within the 1024 cylander mark, or you can use either grub or the current version on lilo which are not limited my the pc's bios. Either way, I must admit, it is a major hassle.
Considering the cheap prices on drives these days, your best bet is to simply add a second disk and dedicate that to linux.
eg: from /usr/src/linux/Documentati
How To Use *Big* ATA/IDE drives with Linux
--------------------------
The ATA Interface spec for IDE disk drives allows a total of 28 bits
(8 bits for sector, 16 bits for cylinder, and 4 bits for head) for addressing
individual disk sectors of 512 bytes each (in "Linear Block Address" (LBA)
mode, there is still only a total of 28 bits available in the hardware).
This "limits" the capacity of an IDE drive to no more than 128GB (Giga-bytes).
All current day IDE drives are somewhat smaller than this upper limit, and
within a few years, ATAPI disk drives will raise the limit considerably.
All IDE disk drives "suffer" from a "16-heads" limitation: the hardware has
only a four bit field for head selection, restricting the number of "physical"
heads to 16 or less. Since the BIOS usually has a 63 sectors/track limit,
this means that all IDE drivers larger than 504MB (528Meg) must use a "physical"
geometry with more than 1024 cylinders.
(1024cyls * 16heads * 63sects * 512bytes/sector) / (1024 * 1024) == 504MB
---
Linux itself does not use the bios to access the disk, so this is limited to just the boot process. If you can reparition with something like partition magic to create a linux boot partition within the 1024 cylander mark, or you can use either grub or the current version on lilo which are not limited my the pc's bios. Either way, I must admit, it is a major hassle.
Considering the cheap prices on drives these days, your best bet is to simply add a second disk and dedicate that to linux.
I'm not sure you got the point that there is no such thing as Linux 6.1. We're guessing the operating system you have is Red Hat Linux 6.1, one of the many operating systems in the Linux family.
No comment has been added lately, so it's time to clean up this TA.
I will leave the following recommendation for this question in the Cleanup topic area:
Split: MFCRich {http:#6433613} & moonbeam {http:#6439161}
Please leave any comments here within the next seven days.
PLEASE DO NOT ACCEPT THIS COMMENT AS AN ANSWER!
jmcg
EE Cleanup Volunteer
I will leave the following recommendation for this question in the Cleanup topic area:
Split: MFCRich {http:#6433613} & moonbeam {http:#6439161}
Please leave any comments here within the next seven days.
PLEASE DO NOT ACCEPT THIS COMMENT AS AN ANSWER!
jmcg
EE Cleanup Volunteer
ASKER
Yes, it is linux 6.1.
I was just thinking if I re-partition and leave a space of below 8 GB for linux? would it work for linux 6.1?