Invalid partition table

[Kris Haight]

I've had a similar problem. And I, too, have a dual boot system (and soon to
be another one).

Which partition is your active partition?

You can find this out by doing a

fdisk -l /dev/hda

The active partition will be noted with the * next to it.

If you've installed your boot loader into the /boot partition and *NOT* the
MBR, then your /boot partition needs to the the active one. Usually the
windows installer will make C:\ the active partition. You just need to
change this.

>From the Rescue CD prompt do the following:

1. fdisk /dev/hda
2. Press "a" (to change toggle active partition)
3. Press "1" (to toggle the windows partition "OFF")
4. Press "a" (again!)
5. Press "5" (to toggle the /boot partition "ON")
6. Confirm the changes have been done by pressing "p" (to print the
partition table). You should have a * next to  /dev/hda5 (under the "boot"
column)
7. Press "w" to write the partition table, if its correct.
8. If you get an error about device being 'busy' ignore it, and reboot

You should now get your bootloader on startup.

If you ever re-install windows again, you will just need to re-do these
steps to gain back your boot loader, because windows will re-make the C:\
drive your "active" partition.

This is why I disagree with people who say there should not be an option for
this when installing. If there was an option it would be easy to say "when
you are setting up drives, select this optiom". Even if the option is
burried under two or three menus.

Anyhow I hope this helps.

-----Original Message-----
From: fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com]
On Behalf Of Reshat Sabiq
Sent: Saturday, July 10, 2004 12:06 AM
To: For users of Fedora Core releases
Subject: Re: Invalid partition table


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