Have 6g hd w/'95-3g/Drake 7.1-3g. Would like to add Debian, please help.

[BK1]

Would like to set up '95-2g partition, Drake 7.1-2g partition and Debian-2g partition. Tried this weekend, many mistakes, resorted to fdisk, wiped hd and re-installed '95 and Drake 7.1 with 3g each. Previously had '98 3g/Drake 7.0 3g. Deleted Linux Partition/defraged '98, recreated 3g Linux partition and installed Storm...new Lilo screen on reboot, but "Rain" demo version slightly underwelming on first look. Deleted Linux partition via PartitionMagic/defragged hd/recreated 3g partition via PartitionMagic/installed Debian to boot from floppy as manual suggested. Couldn't startx, no 3buttonemulation, ???
Rebooted, expecting to see Lilo offer choices of OS, instead all that came up on the screen was LI in the upper left corner... And then panic set in.
Hindsight, probably should have put in '98 boot disk and at A: prompt. Cd'd to C: prompt and typed "win" to boot the '98 partition. Instead, I fdisk'd and deleted all partitions. Then created new 6g hd and did the full restore that comes with this Compaq. 90 minutes later, '95 fully loaded and functional.
Decided to try again. Instead of using PartitionMagic, followed manual and installed fips on the C drive and then re-sized the 6g partition down to 4g to allow for Debian. Then went into install. Hindsight is I'm pretty sure I should have created another partition at this time for swap, because when I got to the point of the install to partition, of course I had only one available and it seemed to be too late. Once again...panic set in.
I followed my previous fall back procedure. Then used partition magic to create a 3g partition and installed Drake 7.1. Looks really nice.
I don't want to give up on Debian. I've learned a lot I think...particularly about fdisk.
What would be the best approach, w/ a 6g hd, to set up a 2g partition w'95, a 2g partition w/Drake 7.1 and a 2g w/Debian? I think I would like to set it so I can get to '95 and Drake via Lilo and floppy boot Debian. Any help would be appreciated.
If you want to say that I made obvious errors...I agree.
Thanks for any help.


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The Hills of Defeat are covered with the bleached bones of those, who with victory in sight, paused to rest. Hurry up everytime you think about it.

[ColdPack]

I posted this as a response to your same post in "Rants".
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Install your windows thing, then install Mandrake using GRUB as your bootloader. As for Debian, you don't need to install lilo but -- instead boot from the the boot floppy you created during the install.
In your bios, set it so it looks to the floppy drive "a:" first, the hard drive "c:" second. Do you know how to do that? Well, as the computer is first booting up you will see a message like "Hit F2 to enter setup" or something. Do that then look for "boot sequence" and do the above changes.
That way you have the option of booting either win or drake from initial bootup or, insert the floppy into your floppy drive before you boot up your computer and when you do power it up, it will check the floppy drive first. When it finds that debian boot floppy in there, that's what it will boot with. (From expererience, using the debian boot floppy takes several minutes to do so be patient.)
That's all there is to it, really.

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Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake
when you make it again.
_- Franklin P. Jones

[milanuk]

Hehe... been there done that... good to know I'm not the only one http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/wink.gif

FWIW (too late now, but might need it down the road), rather than wipe the hard drive when LILO dumped, you can just use your Win9x boot disk, and from the command line prompt run 'fdisk /mbr' to wipe clean the MBR and make Win9x the only entry in the MBR.

Some versions of LILO have problems when the partition they are supposed to boot is above the 1024 cylinder point (~2G). Dunno if Debian's LILO is guilty of this or not. Here is a suggested partitioning scheme that _should work:

/dev/hda1 5-10M /boot (for debian)
/dev/hda2 2G Win9x (mount in Linux as /mnt/win9x)
/dev/hda3 ~4G Extended partition. contains the following:

/dev/hda5 128M swap (should be able to use in both Mandrake and Debian)
/dev/hda6 2G / ( root '/' partition for Mandrake)
/dev/hda7 remainder / (root '/' for Debian)

Note that the first two partitions are actual 'primary' partitions, and the rest are 'logical' partitions. Best bet is to create an 'extended' partition /dev/hda3 in Partition Magic after the Windows partition that takes up the rest of the hard drive, and then create the swap and other partitions in either fdisk or 'diskdrake' while installing Linux.

For the Mandrake install, give it hda5 for swap and hda6 for '/', and for the Debian install, give it hda1 for /boot (this is where the kernel is. this way it is below the 1024 cylinder gotcha), hda5 for swap, and hda7 for '/'.

Keep a boot disk for each of these OS's (Win9x, Mandrake, and Debian) handy, and be prepared to spend some quality time w/ the LILO-mini-HOWTO.

HTH,

Monte

[BK1]

Thanks,
Sounds like I'm gonna have to wipe my hard drive, repartition and start over again. I now have a little experience with fdisk so this should be do-able. But I may have a problem with re-installing 95. How can I tell it to use the second partition rather than the first?

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The Hills of Defeat are covered with the bleached bones of those, who with victory in sight, paused to rest. Hurry up everytime you think about it.

[milanuk]

Originally posted by BK1:
Thanks,
Sounds like I'm gonna have to wipe my hard drive, repartition and start over again. I now have a little experience with fdisk so this should be do-able. But I may have a problem with re-installing 95. How can I tell it to use the second partition rather than the first?



Well... If you already have Windows set up to your liking (talk about an oxymoron!), you can just use partion magic to make the small partition in front of the Windows one, assuming you go that route. Then do the Linux installs. There is no rule that says that the partitions have to be in numerical sequence. hda1 could be at the end of the drive, instead of the beginning, for all Linux cares.

Now that I think of it, there _are_ two rather cool boot loaders that unfortunately require a FAT partition to run off of -- 'xosl' and 'gag'. And neither one is as picky as LILO. You could just keep you M$ partition first, use partition magic to shrink it to 2G, then make an extended partition that takes up the rest of the drive. Make _sure_ you have a M$ boot disk. Then do your Linux installs, and create the swap partition and the '/' partitions for Mandrake and Debian, and make boot disks for each. Then boot back into M$, and install the bootloader (GAG is nice and I think free as in beer and speech. XosL is nicer, but I think more restrictive. Do a google search on them). It should be relatively easy to set it up for windows and two linuxes.

good luck,

Monte