Soo..umm..What?

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Soo..umm..What?
started by: shiftyeyes

Posted by shiftyeyes on Nov. 13 2006,21:20

Okay, well, I'm like tottaly new to linux(Unless you countMac OS X as linux, then i'm not)
Well, My Windows ME died a few weeks ago, i was able to get a DSL disk today(yay) and well, am tottaly confused on how to Install, i booted from the Live CD just great, no problems at all

Buuut, The Install manual thingies i've seen in the Wiki and Start up guide on Dillo, have been no help o_o
Can Somone help? the Wiki says somthing about typing

Code Sample

sudo -s
cfdisk /dev/hda

I type that in XShell(I cant find XTerminal, so i thought it was that), but i dont know what to do after that it tottaly confuses me,When i type N for new partition(right?) it says somthing about it is already in use..
GAH I AM SO CONFUSED O_O
Can someone help please?
btw, i hope i posted this in the correct forum(crosses finger)

Posted by mikshaw on Nov. 13 2006,21:54

cfdisk won't be able to create a partition if your disk is already fully partitioned. If you don't mind losing your data, you can first delete one or more existing partition(s) and create a new linux partition from the free space. Otherwise you'll need to use something other than DSL to resize an existing partition, or put in a second harddrive.

Posted by shiftyeyes on Nov. 13 2006,23:01

o__O Okay, i did exactly that, it deleted my CD DRIVE! And now my Windows ME is working perfect again, Wtf?
How is it DSL deleted my CD Drive(Also some Old App's have returned o_O) and now my Windows ME works? o_O
Um, Help please!
Oh, and because of this, Now i cant load any disc, Cant boot from them at all o_O

Posted by mikshaw on Nov. 14 2006,01:15

Good question....i've never heard of that, and never once considered (even now) that it could be possible to delete a cdrom device using cfdisk. This application modifies partition tables on writable disks, and I don't believe it's possible to delete a device with it.

My guess is something else went screwy, possibly resulting in your bios being changed to boot the harddisk first (or only), or maybe something else...i have no ideas at the moment.
I can't help any more, though, unless you can post exactly what you did.

Posted by skaos on Nov. 14 2006,11:22

Check your bios setup (and maybe flash the bios with a new version as a last resort). The reason for this may be that your cd drive is setup as primary master (/dev/hda) and your disk as primary slave (/dev/hdb), secondary master (/dev/hdc) or secondary slave (/dev/hdd). If you get the cd drive to work again try to replace /dev/hda in the cfdisk command with /dev/hdb etc.

EDIT: from another post it seems that DSL also comes with fdisk and then you can run "fdisk -l" as root to list all disks and partitions.