Booting from HD partition


Forum: HD Install
Topic: Booting from HD partition
started by: Josiah

Posted by Josiah on Aug. 02 2006,23:27
I just installed to the hard drive using < these > instructions.  I created three partitions.  Two type 83 Linux (one for booting) and one Type 82 Linux Swap.  I had initially set up hda3 (the non-boot Type 83 partition, comprising about 90% of my HD) as Fat32, not really knowing what the correct type was.  When I realized my error, I went back into cfdisk and changed hda3 to Type 83 Linux.  (Side note: all partitions are setup as "primary" rather than "logical"; i don't know the difference).  I hit write partition table and it gave me a readout as follows:

Quote
Wrote partition table, but re-read table failed.  Reboot to update table.


So I reboot, and I get a read out like so:


Quote
Scanning for Harddisk partitions and creating /etc/fstab... modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module xfs
modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module minix
modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module hfs
modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module efs
modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module xfs
modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module minix
modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module hfs
modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module efs
Done.
Network device eth0 detected, DHCP broadcasting for IP. (Backgrounding)
Automounted starter for: floppy cdrom cdrom1.
ssh started
Checking for myDSL apps... FAT: bogus logical sector size 49788
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev 03:03.
modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module efs
mount: you must specify the filesystem type
Done
INIT: Entering runlevel: 5
FAT: bogus logical sector size 49788
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev 03:03.
modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module efs
mount: you must specify the filesystem type
Unable to mount device hda3
Press enter to continue:


I hit enter, and it boots normally.  But I don't seem to be able to save any sort of settings including, for instance, myDSL extentions and the root password.

What's going on?

Posted by Josiah on Aug. 03 2006,03:39
Note: after reconfiguring my harddrive as described above (two linux partitions and one linux swap partition) I reinstalled DSL.  The same problem persists.

It's as though I'm booting from a liveCD still, in that nothing will save (and yes, I have removed the live CD from the drive).

Posted by Someone on Aug. 03 2006,03:49
Thats because you have not formatted them yet, so format them:
Swap: mkswap /dev/hdax where x is your swap partition, after that swapon /dev/hdax
And then install dsl to the other partition you made, it will format it by it self.
Remember to be root when you execute the commands.

Posted by Josiah on Aug. 03 2006,04:47
So I'm clear, you are recommending a partition scheme something like this:

< PuTTy cfdisk screen shot >

And i should leave the rest unpartitioned?  Will I be able to use the remaining space?

And when the LILO install asks me if I want to designate a different backup partition and and a different myDSL partition, I should say no?

Posted by Josiah on Aug. 04 2006,22:33
So...any ideas?
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Aug. 08 2006,05:56
That's up to you on how you use your hard drive space, and so is your backup and myDSL partition.

I'd suggest using that space for those 2 purposes.

Posted by mikshaw on Aug. 08 2006,15:02
You won't be able to use it if it's not partitioned and formatted, and you won't be able to partition it if you are already booted into the hda1 system (the disk must be unmounted in order to partition it).  So you might as well finish the task before installing.
Posted by brianw on Aug. 08 2006,18:28
I know with my laptop I had problems using cfdisk to do the partitioning so I used fdisk (there is also sfdisk but I haven't used that) to do the partitioning and it worked.  Now cfdisk sees the hard drive.  Until you get the partition table written you won't be able to format anything so try one of the other tools to see if you can set the partitons first then you can format them.  You can use all primary partitions if you want.  The only difference (that I see anyway) is that you can only have 4 primary partitions while you can have more logical partitions.  Since you only want three partitions using primary is fine.  You need that partition table written first though.
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