installation probz

[Waxycat]

after i use disk druid to choose the partitions/mount points/etc. it says there's an error and it's now safe to restart the computer. i don't want to restart the computer, i want to finnish the installation!

[DMR]

Waxycat,

What exactly was the error? Could you give us little more info regarding your hardware and the distro/version that you are using?

[Waxycat]

sorry i alwayz forget that.... can't give the exact error cause i'm not at the place i installed it. i remember it wasn't very specific though. it's Red Hat 7. let's see.... i think it's a 1.4 ghz 256 mb ram and amd. with a voodoo 5 550 (or 5500?).

[DMR]

Have you had/do you have another OS installed on the drive in question? I guess my point is: how was the drive initially partitioned and formatted?

Just as a side thought:
If you're not using the "expert" installation mode, you might want to give that a try, as it allows more flexibilty/control during the partitioning process.

[Waxycat]

i tried with and without expert. it's an empty primary hard drive (the first one recognized by the computer) and there's no partition on it cause i wanted to make the partitions using linux. btw i haven't really seen any difference with normal and expert mode. what gives?

[DMR]

Originally posted by Waxycat:
<STRONG>...btw i haven't really seen any difference with normal and expert mode. what gives?</STRONG> I'm not sure what's going on there. I haven't used RH 7.x yet; perhaps there isn't much difference at patitioning stage of that particular version's install. This might be a stupid question, but you did format the partitions after creating them, yes?
How were you trying to partition the drive (partition names, mount points, and sizes)?

[Waxycat]

well it's an old 8 gig, so i gave 256 mb to swap partition then made a native root to fill the rest. no i didn't format cause it's supposed to format right before it installs and when i try to format in dos it says bad command or file name.

[DMR]

D-oh! I'm afraid to ask, because it'll prove how brain-dead I am for not doing so before, but:

Are you actually getting an error, or is the installation just telling you to restart so the new partition table can be written. It would be need to do that on a previously unpartitioned drive.

When you re-launch the installer after the restart, the partitions will be there. When you get to the partitioning section again, don't change anything, just format them and continue the install.


-If this is all that's been wrong, I'm going to find a small, dark hole to hide in for awhile...
:D

[Waxycat]

nope it's an error. i've had the partitions there for a few restarts but it never lets me format or choose what i want to install or anything.

[DMR]

:confused:

Maybe you should have at it with the DOS tools again, just to verify that the disk is OK.
Make a DOS boot disk and copy fdisk.exe and format.com onto it. Boot with that and see if you can create and format DOS partitions.

Also- is it possible that your Linux installation disk is bad?

[Waxycat]

nah the disk is good. i tried all that dos stuff i know it's working fine.

[Waxycat]

oh my bad, i forgot, this is about the installation on the other computer. well dos won't reformat. it will repartition but when i tell it to format it says bad command or file name.

[bwkaz]

You need to have format.com either in the current directory or in the path to be able to format a drive in DOS.

By default, if you boot with no autoexec.bat (most bootable floppies do that), the path is blank, so format.com has to be in the current directory. Make sure it is.

That's where the "Bad command or file name" message comes from -- DOS can't find the format.com file.

[Waxycat]

um... i don't boot with a floppy i boot into windows and then select "restart in ms-dos mode" from the shutdown options from the start menu. but i'll look for format.com

[mychl]

Did you try using fdisk??? That way you can try to format the whole thing into one partition, then write the table to see it it worked. Then set up your new partition scheme....

[Waxycat]

if i use fdisk it will become a dos partition but i need a linux partition.

[DMR]

Right. The whole idea of trying to create and format a DOS partition was just to verify the integrity of the disk itself. In other words, to make sure that problems with the media aren't causing your install to bomb. The partition can be deleted later.

[Waxycat]

actually i think it has something to do with the same reason that windows isn't keeping the settings. since the power is 120 and 200 recommended, maybe it's not getting any (?) but i think that might soon change.