Fedora, w2k dual: Partition table on device hda was unreadable

From: Paul Matthias Diderichsen (pmd_at_fysik.dtu.dk)
Date: 07/29/04

  • Next message: Phil: "[Newbie] Installing external driver" 
    Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 11:36:35 +0200

    I just attempted to linux'ify my corporate thinkpad t41 equipped with a
    single NTFS partition containing w2k.

    What I wanted was a linux installation on this laptop for use in my free
    time. (No way I'm gonna use windows at home! :-) )

    This posting explains how I fixed the "Partition table on device hda was
    unreadable" problem in the Fedora (C1, C2, as well as RH7.3) installer.
    (Did some googling for a solution. Didn't find any...)

    The problem turned out to be the shrinking of the NTFS partition and the
    subsequent addition of new partitions. I used the linux Partition Magic
    clone, qtparted, from the "System Rescue CD" to shrink the NTFS
    partition (hda1) to only take up half the HD. Then I added an extended
    partition (hda2) on the remaining space and filled it with boot (hda5),
    root (hda6) swap (hda7) and home (hda8) partitions.

    When attempting to install Fedora, I received the message "Partition
    table on device hda was unreadable"... blabla, did I want to wipe the
    HD. Nope, because that would erase my corp windows installation. Which
    would DEFINATELY be A Bad Thing.

    Now, it turned out, that qtparted had constructed the extended partition
    so that the total space taken up by the NTFS and extended partitions was
    greater than the size of the HD: qtparted reported a HD size of 78G
    sectors, while the actual size of the HD is only 71G sectors.

    *** The solution: ONLY use qtparted for SHRINKING the NTFS partition.
    Use fdisk to fill the empty space with linux partitions.

    While searching for this solution, I came across the following useful pages:
    * http://turl.diderichsen.dk/18
    * http://turl.diderichsen.dk/19
    * http://turl.diderichsen.dk/1a

    Hope this may help some of you guys. :-)

  • Next message: Phil: "[Newbie] Installing external driver"

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