fdisk won't recognize a device on IBM Thinkpad 700C

by Tom McReynol » Thu, 30 Nov 1995 04:00:00

I'm trying to install Linux on an IBM Thinkpad 700C. I'm loading slackware 3.0,
booted with bare, and loaded color144.

I've taken the defaults, and logged in as root. In my fuzzy understanding,
I need to partition the computer's single hard disk with fdisk. However,
fdisk doesn't recognize any disk partitions. I keep getting the message:

Unable to open /dev/<whatever>

I use Unix a lot, but I'm not a sysadmin wiz, and I know almost nothing about
PCs. Has anyone else successfully partitioned an IBM Thinkpad and could give
me a hint?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

-Tom

Top

1. DOS fdisk won't recognize changes made by linux fdisk

I'm having some real problems setting up this computer. I have
just one hard drive, and I feel like I need at least the following
partitions:
C: (hda1) -Fat32
D: (hda6) -Fat32
/ (hda5) -ext2
/home (hda7) -ReiserFS
swap (hda8) -swap

C: is /hda1. I don't think there's any other options. It
uses cyl 1-615.

/hda2 is the DOS extended partition that covers the rest of the drive.

sectors 616-1023 will be "/" for me. I need "/" to fit within the first
1024 cylinders.

D: should start at cylinder 1024.

If I run DOS fdisk first (to create C: and D:), it will put D:
at the beginning of the extended partition. There's no way for
me to pick a starting point for the partition. (I've tried this
with fdisk for win98 and fdisk for winme).

If I run linux fdisk before creating D:, then DOS fdisk will hang
when I try to run it! This is where I am now. I can currently
only run fdisk from a preformatted floppy with linux. fdisk for
DOS asks about "large disk support", and then hangs.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
aron

2. tn3270 for Solaris 2.3 wanted

3. IBM Thinkpad 700C PS/2

4. RSVP protocol implementation

5. IBM Thinkpad 700c

6. LinkSys EtherFast 10/100 & Redhat7.0

7. IBM Thinkpad 700C

8. Q: ifalias bug on HPUX 10.10?

9. FOLLOWUP: IBM Thinkpad 700C -> RH4.2 problems

10. IBM THINKPAD 700C laptop...

11. NetBSD on IBM Thinkpad 700c PS/2