Attn all Slackware gurus. HDD probs

[chris31_80]

Ok, I've decided to do the unthinkable and try Slackware. I bought a book that includes SW 7.0 on it. Kernel 2.2.13 is supported.

I have partitioned my 40 gig Maxtor HDD and have a partition specifically for ext2. When I boot off the CD ROM, it goes thru and boots and when I try to F Disk (CF DISK gets a critical error), it tells me that the driver is larger than 4032 or something like that and some OS's may not be supported (OS/2, Windows, etc).

I try /dev/hda, /dev/hdb, or dev/hdc (it's the third partition on the hdd that it needs to install on), and Slackware won't even recognize it.

Since it's a larger HDD, will I have to manually plug in the HDD parameters? :confused:

Partition:1 = win 98se, Partition 2= Win games, Partition 3 = ext2, no swap (yet)

[bdl]

If you've already partitioned the drive to include an EXT2 partition, you don't need to run FDISK or CFDISK before you install. The drive is already partitioned.

FDISK, I believe, gives these errors as a rule upon startup. It's usually telling you about the amount of C/H/S on the drive and that it's over 1024 or some such. Ignore this, on current systems it's not going to affect your install. It may affect the way you boot the system, as older versions of LILO (which I'm sure the 7.0 disk has) cannot boot past cylinder 1024. I would ignore the errors at this point, try the install and create a bootdisk to get into Slackware for the time being. Again, if the drive is already partitioned, skip this step.


Exactly how many drives do you have? If you've only got one drive on the IDE0 Master, it's /dev/hda. The other drive designations you're trying don't exist and therefore aren't being found.

Slack 7.0 with 2.2.13 is somewhat outdated and as such will probably not recognize any ATA66/100 controllers you may have. This may be the entire problem right there. In this case, you'd have to either grab one of the newer ATA66/100 capable bootdisks and try it out with the older install CD, or pass arguments to the kernel upon boot. You can find more information in the UDMA66 NHF.

Slack-current has been frozen in anticipation for the release of Slackware v8.0. If you have a decent connection, grab slack-current and install that instead, it should boot up on any "modern system" and install just fine. Or wait for 8.0.....


Of course, all this assumes you've backed up all critical data on the system. You have havent you? ;)

[chris31_80]

nevermind, a new post is coming. :D

[bdl]

ummm...k

[Big_Jeff Stud]

I've gotten these errors before and the only thing I've been able to do is ensure that the kernel is installed before the 1024th cluster. You should probably backup your Windows stuff and repartition. I know it sucks, but trust me, don't dual boot Slack until you've backed up your critical data. I've lost hundreds of MP3's because of my lazy habits.