Invalid partition table

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Fri, 9 Jul 2004, Reshat Sabiq wrote:

> Reshat Sabiq wrote:
>
> > Matthew Saltzman wrote:
> >
> >>On Thu, 8 Jul 2004, Reshat Sabiq wrote:
> >>Boot the Rescue CD or CD 1 in rescue mode and tell us the result of
> >>"fdisk -l /dev/hda".
> >>
> >>
> >>
> > Thanks Timothy and Matthew for your responses.
> > Yes, this is a dual boot.
> > This is how it's currently set up:
> > /dev/hda1    1            1014   NTFS
> > /dev/hda2    1015      3446   Extended
> > /dev/hda3     3447      4661   Unused
> > /dev/hda4      4662      4863   Unused
> > /dev/hda5      1015      1024   /boot
> > /dev/hda6      1025      3316   /
> > /dev/hda7      3317      3446   swap

I was looking in particular for the cylinder,block,sector numbers that you
did not include in this listing.

> >
> > I never heard of boot having to be a primary partition, but maybe it
> > has to be? It's currently a logical one.

I believe that if you want the initial bootloader in /boot, then /boot
needs to be primary.  If grub is in the MBR or you chain to grub from the
Windows bootloader, then you are probably OK with a logical /boot.  (Maybe
someone could confirm that...)

> > I set this up using fdisk, and then went on to installing. If i try
> > the same partitioning from the install CD, i get errors about failure
> > to do disk-based (or cylinder based) partitioning. But once it's set
> > up by fdisk in advance, the install CD accepts it just fine.
> > Since it probably doesn't have much to do with LBA-32 or cylinders for
> > /boot, i will likely try making everything folloing NTFS Unused (1
> > partition), and then go on to installing and see how the CD manages
> > it. Once it's installed i could resize and re-partition the pieces i need.
> >
> > I'll let you know how it goes.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > <rsa/>
>
> Forgot to mention: Windows boots fine. Trying restore from rescue CD was
> unsuccessful: it reinstalled boot loader, but there's nothing about
> partitioning. It looks like fdisk might be accepting partitioning that
> is invalid. I haven't experienced invalid partitioning before, so don't
> know what the criteria might be. I considered myself the king of
> partitioning... :)

If it's the usual dual-boot FC2 issue, it's Windows that is accepting
(actually *expecting*) the improperly configured partition table, which
Linux wants to fix.  See, e.g, www.ces.clemson.edu/linux/fc2T42.shtml for
a description and links to more details.


-- 
		Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs