Re: fdisk [was: Win 2000 & redhat (9)]

From: P Gentry (rdgentry1_at_cablelynx.com)
Date: 04/11/04 

Date: 10 Apr 2004 16:13:36 -0700

Peter Schmitt <schmitt@ap.univie.ac.at> wrote in message news:<Pine.OSF.4.44.0404081951310.904086-100000@balan.ap.univie.ac.at>...
> On Sun, 4 Apr 2004, Vince wrote:
> > Peter Schmitt wrote:
> > > Then I installed Win2000 and afterwards Linux, choosing Grub
> > > (and the defaults).
> > > But then Win would no longer boot.
> > > I repeated the process several times, trying several choices with the
> >
> > I've done this at least five times on five different machines
> > with no problems. w2k, then linux with grub.
> >
> > 1st install w2k and left plenty of room of free, unformated
> > disk space for linux, then
> > for the linux install made sure it went on the un-formated space.
> >
> In my case, (linux) fdisk seems to be the problem.
> After installing RedHat Win2000 would allow (re)installing only
> after removing all partitions, and making a new partition with Windows.
> All other attempts ended in "invalid partition table" (windows)
> or "partition boundaries do not coincide with cylinder boundaries" (or
> similar, linux).
>
> Even adding a single second primary partition with linux
> ended with "inaccesible_boot_device" (Windows).
> (Adding a logical partition in an extended partition generated by
> windows might work -- I shall have to do more experiments)

As Vince mentioned, leaving free space for your Linux installation --
after installing W2K -- is the best way to go. It may depend on your
W2K installation, but I've always left the free space _unpartitioned_
as Win usually mucks up the partition type needed by Grub to load its
proper Stage1_5 file.

Question is: How are you getting that free space? W2K will use one
partition for the whole disk with a default W2K install. Are you
shrinking the Win primary partition after installing W2K? With what
tool? What commands exactly?

Once you have W2K running well on the disk _with_ free space, you
should be able to install Linux with no problems. Real question to
prepare for is choice of boot loader -- ntldr, Grub, or "other". Be
sure you understand what is needed to do this properly, as each
loader/setup will offer "quirks" that you must adapt to. Defaults
will often not be what you intended.

The source of your problem lies in the answer to the "Question" above,
I think. It re-writes the partition table info in a way W2K doesn't
like. There are several thinks that can make W2K not like the
changes.

hth,
prg
email above disabled

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