Very Computer

Hi everyone,
I am trying to install Linux on my system, which
is already running Win98.  I have a 12.7 Gbyte
Quantum Fireball EX hard drive.  The drive was
setup up as follows:

C: primary FAT32 partition
D: extended FAT32
E: logical FAT32
F: logical FAT32

* All are about 3 gigs in size.

I have now deleted F:, in an attempt to make room
for Linux.  When I try to create the root
partition for Linux, I keep getting the an error
message: "Boot partition too large."  I have no
problems creating linux swap partitions.

Can someone explain why I can't create the root
partition?  Does this have something to do with
the fact that I'm attempting to install Linux at
the end of my drive?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

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Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

1. What distribution are you using?
2. At what point is this error occurring?

It could possibly have something to do with installing Linux at the end
of your drive: The Linux boot loader (LILO) needs all it's files to be
inside the first 1024 cylinders of your drive, which translates to about
8GB. Maybe you should try recreating F:, shunting everything from E: to
F: and delete E: (thus effectively moving E: up to the end of the drive
without affecting your drive letters), and try to install Linux in the
'middle' space.

Good luck
Bruce
/--------------------------------------------------------------------\
| Bruce Merry (Entropy)            | bmerry at iafrica dot com       |
| Proud user of Linux!             | http://www.cs.uct.ac.za/~bmerry |
|              Why use Windows, since there is a door?               |
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Linux likes the root partition to be within the
first 1024 clinders of the hard drive.  This is
usually satisfied by creating a very small
(25MB) partition for / at the beginning of the
drive.

There is the possible of booting linux with the
lilo parameter "linear".  This tells linux to
use linear addressing rather than BIOS addressing,
and your setup will work.

You may need to do some quick math with the
head/cylinder definitions in fdisk's advanced
mode.

Anyway, I know how to setup linear addressing
after linux is installed, but I've never seen fdisk
complain before like that.  Usually it just
creates partitions.

So, is fdisk complaining, or is the Linux installer
complaining?

Torsten