Very Computer

Hi all,

I have been mucking around trying to install Red Hat on my Win98 PC.

Just before I go through the whole install again I just want to confirm the
following process which I am pretty sure will work through ,my previous
trial and error process.

1 - Install Win98 *

2 - Resize the W98 partition creating:
        a) a small (approx 12mb) partitition at the begining of the HDD for
/boot
        b) an extended partition with two logical partitions for ext2 and
the swap file.

3 - Install Red Hat.

* - I noticed if I have a normal DOS FAT12/16 partition then install linux
(allowing red hat to setup up the partitions automatically) then W98 then
the W98 install corrupts the /boot partition  - is this normal ?

Please reply to the news group.

Thanks in advance.

JD

I'd be *very_wary* of using an extended partition for Linux.  I attempted
that one and the installation wiped out three logical vfat drives in one
fell swoop, causing me to lose much.  Other than that, I'd say you'll have
to experiment and see what works best for your particular setup!  I had to
install Linux several times before I got things tweaked.

Good luck!  (There is doubtless a guru out there somewhere who can help more
than I can...)

Regards...
                ...CH

Quote:> Hi all,

> I have been mucking around trying to install Red Hat on my Win98 PC.

> Just before I go through the whole install again I just want to confirm
the
> following process which I am pretty sure will work through ,my previous
> trial and error process.

> 1 - Install Win98 *

> 2 - Resize the W98 partition creating:
>         a) a small (approx 12mb) partitition at the begining of the HDD
for
> /boot
>         b) an extended partition with two logical partitions for ext2 and
> the swap file.

> 3 - Install Red Hat.

> * - I noticed if I have a normal DOS FAT12/16 partition then install linux
> (allowing red hat to setup up the partitions automatically) then W98 then
> the W98 install corrupts the /boot partition  - is this normal ?

> Please reply to the news group.

> Thanks in advance.

> JD

"Jason De Mullich

Quote:

> Hi all,

> I have been mucking around trying to install Red Hat on my Win98 PC.

> Just before I go through the whole install again I just want to confirm the
> following process which I am pretty sure will work through ,my previous
> trial and error process.

> 1 - Install Win98 *

If you are going to install Win98, it would make sense to
install it in a partition of the size you want for it rather
than installing it and then resizing it.

Quote:

> 2 - Resize the W98 partition creating:
>         a) a small (approx 12mb) partitition at the begining of the HDD for
> /boot

This is only necessary if your Win98 partition is so big,
you don't have room for a small /boot partition following
it and staying below the 1024 cylinder limit.

Quote:>         b) an extended partition with two logical partitions for ext2 and
> the swap file.

If you are only going to use four partitions altogether, you
don't need an extended partition.  You can just use primary
partitions.

Quote:

> 3 - Install Red Hat.

If you put Win98 first in its own partition, and you have room
after it for /boot, you can just choose a workstation install
and the redhat installer will take care of the partitioning for
linux.  But it will create an extended partition with logical
partitions in it.

Quote:

> * - I noticed if I have a normal DOS FAT12/16 partition then install linux
> (allowing red hat to setup up the partitions automatically) then W98 then
> the W98 install corrupts the /boot partition  - is this normal ?

> Please reply to the news group.

You have to make a special effort to install Win98 in the
second primary partition.  I don't remember how to do it,
but I am pretty sure it can be done.  It may just be that you
should use either the Linux or Windows fdisk to mark the
second partition as the active partition.  (In that case,
you probably don't want to leave it that way after you have
installed linux.)  If as you say you just
use the default installation of Win98, it probably messes up
everything.

If you do manage to get /boot in a small partition at the
beginning, make sure it is not marked as the active partition
if you put lilo in the master boot record, as noted above.

Quote:

> Thanks in advance.

> JD

--

Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208

Strange - I've always used logical partitions for Linux, so:

Disk /dev/hdb: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 790 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
   /dev/hdb1             2       789   6329610    5  Extended
   /dev/hdb5             2       262   2096451    6  FAT16
   /dev/hdb6   *       263       271     72261   83  Linux
   /dev/hdb7           272       284    104391   83  Linux
   /dev/hdb8           285       392    867478+  83  Linux
   /dev/hdb9           393       651   2080386   83  Linux
   /dev/hdb10          652       660     72261   82  Linux swap
   /dev/hdb11          661       789   1036161   83  Linux

and have never had any problems like that. You sure you didn't try to
install to the extended partition itself, rather than a logical
partition within it? :)

--
Colin Watson                                      [cjw44 at cam.ac.uk]
Trinity College, Cambridge, and Computer Science       [riva.ucam.org]
"On Usenet, pedantry is not in the service of beauty. It's not even
 in the service of truth. It's in the service of EVEN MORE PEDANTRY."

Let's just say that I know for a fact that I did not specify the extended
partition, itself -- I used a completely different device#.  That is what is
so puzzling about it.  I my drive was set up as follows:

hdb1: Linux
hdb2: Extended partition
hdb5: vfat
hdb6: vfat
hdb7: vfat
hdb8: Linux
...and hdb8 apparently was the culprit which  wiped out the logical drives
because hdb1 was still accessible and no logical vfat drive was accessible.
When I went to boot Windoze, I had huge problems since it was attempting to
access those drives.

...CH

Let's just say that I know for a fact that I did not specify the extended
partition, itself -- I used a completely different device#.  That is what is
so puzzling about it.  I my drive was set up as follows:

hdb1: Linux
hdb2: Extended partition
hdb5: vfat
hdb6: vfat
hdb7: vfat
hdb8: Linux
...and hdb8 apparently was the culprit which  wiped out the logical drives
because hdb1 was still accessible and no logical vfat drive was accessible.
When I went to boot Windoze, I had huge problems since it was attempting to
access those drives.

...CH

Just a quick note on the extended partition thing:

This is what Red Hat used when it did the default Workstation install, hence
the reason I thought it nay be a good basis for doing things.

ie -

/boot - Primary Partiton
ext2 and swap as part of extended partitions.

Thanks for all your comments.  I'll try out the suggestions.

JD