hd probleme on fedora

[Kevin J. Cummings]

priou wrote:
> hi, 

> i have 2 hd on my computeur :
> /dev/hda 40go ( linux systeme partition ext3 ) 
> /dev/hdb 80go ( linux partition ext3 ) 

>  my /dev/hdb have four principal partition  ( 4x20go) 

What 4 partitions were they?   1, 2, 3, & 4?
None of them were currently mounted when you did this, right?

> now i would like 2 partions, but i try : fdisk /dev/hdb 
> 
> - delette all partition 
> - write info on Hd 

Any messages from fdisk?  After the w command?  After the q command?
What does "fdisk -l /dev/hdb" tell you now?  It should show you an empty 
partition table....

You may need to sync your file systems after the write, though when 
using a journaled fs like ext3, this *should* be unnecessary, and 
shutting down the system normally should do this for you anyways.
Besides, if the hdb partitions aren't mounted, there should be nothing 
to sync....especially after they have been deleted.  You just need to 
ensure that the boot sector write gets flushed to disk.

> after i ve rebooted my computer  and i run another time : fdisk /dev/hdb 
>  - create partition

What does "fdisk -l /dev/hdb" tell you *before* you try and create the 2 
new partitions (1 & 2, right)?  It should show you the same empty 
partition table as before you rebooted!  If not, something else is 
happeneing!

> but fdisk read my old partition and allocate only 20go, why ? 

My guess is you never unmounted your old partitions when you ran 
fdisk....they were still in use when you rebooted, and the partition 
table never really got changed....

> i try after created my new partition 20go to mount this on my system, but this 
> partition is not empty .... :( 

> on linux, how to make for broken my mbr of this HD ? 
> or 
> how to make for to have  2 partitions  instead of 4 on my HD ? 

> thank for your answer 

> priou alexandre 

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome at rcn.com
cummings at kjchome.homeip.net
cummings at kjc386.framingham.ma.us