cfdisk wont work

Forum: HD Install
Topic: cfdisk wont work
started by: neighborlee

Posted by neighborlee on Aug. 23 2004,20:17

hi..

cfdisk starts but it can't find any of my HD's with this error:
fatal error..cannot open disk drive

any idea ?

thx
nl

Posted by neighborlee on Aug. 23 2004,20:29

dain it nm ;-))....it must be run as 'sudo' LOL

cheers
nl

Posted by jerome5 on Aug. 30 2004,02:12

I am posting this as a warning based on my own experience with cfdisk.

If your harddrive does not have freespace before you run cfdisk, you are risking alot by using cfdisk to resize your partion to make room for a dsl HD Install.

I lost XP on one box and corrupted a small portion of win 98 on another macheine (ie corrupted file system).

There is a reason why they make you type out "yes" rather than just y.

Not only did I crash XP once, I messed it up again by resizing the Linux partition to make another partion which I was planning to use to share data between XP and Linux.

cfdisk - use it at your own risk

Posted by ke4nt1 on Aug. 30 2004,02:44

The cfdisk is not a "resizing" program.
It is a partitioning program - an fdisk clone...
It has no abilities to resize, only making or removing partitions.
It is similar in use to fdisk, only somewhat easier to use..

To resize a partition, use an appropriate program like
parted, fips, or partiton magic.

73
ke4nt

Posted by jerome5 on Aug. 30 2004,03:28

Quote

To resize a partition, use an appropriate program like
parted, fips, or partiton magic.

Please put that in the faq that opens in the cd (or is it but I just didnt see it.)

Posted by pac on Sep. 11 2004,02:24

Quote (neighborlee @ Aug. 23 2004,15:17)

hi..

cfdisk starts but it can't find any of my HD's with this error:
fatal error..cannot open disk drive

any idea ?

thx
nl

I get that same error when I run cfdisk and it doesn't matter if I put 'sudo' or not. I don't know what the hell to do.
<~newb

Posted by jls legalize on Sep. 11 2004,11:07

u can try ranish partition manager

Posted by len on Sep. 12 2004,22:21

do sudo su instead of sudo as i think sudo is only good for 1 command, and sudo su keeps root logged in until logged out.

just a guess, but try cfdisk /dev/hda if it is the first primary master hdd, and cfdisk /dev/hdb if secondary master, ect.... so you get the specific drive desired.

Posted by len on Sep. 12 2004,22:26

Quote (neighborlee @ Aug. 23 2004,16:17)

hi..

cfdisk starts but it can't find any of my HD's with this error:
fatal error..cannot open disk drive

any idea ?

thx
nl

are you trying to access a primary, or logical partition? how many primary, and logical partitions exist on the hdd?