assistance needed ASAP with fdisk

[mis]

I am trying to get RH6.1 on my GF's PC and it says it can not open /dev/hda

I let it get to the disk druid (which I can't use because it keeps telling me that the / partition is to big) and I hit crtl+alt+f2 and get to a bash # and type the following

bash# fdisk /dev/hda

and I get the error about not being able to open it.

PLEASE HELP !!

Mis

[Strike]

Please post the exact error message.

[mis]

Originally posted by Strike:
Please post the exact error message.


bash # fdisk /dev/hda

Unable to open /dev/hda
bash#


In disk druid this is what it looks like

hda1 15005M 15005M win95 FAT32
hda5 101M 101M Linux swap

/ boot partition is too big 4432M/NA Linux native


At the bottom it show this

hda {2491/255/63] 19539M 19539M 4432M [#### ]

[MovingTarget]

ummm it told you the problem.

basically the boot partition (wich is / {where lilo should reside) is way out of its neghiborhood

according to what u posted u have a 15+gb fat32 partition
then a 100mb swap and the rest as /

this is all wrong in my experince

a good duelboot partition set up is this
/dev/hda1 / 1gb (bootable lilo resides here)
/dev/hda2 linuxswap 128mb
/dev/hda3 win2k 5gb fat32
/dev/hda4 extended
/dev/hda5 /home
/dev/hda6 /usr


this has been the best for me as a duel boot setup

your problem from what i see and understand is your / partition is at the END of the drive it has to be at the FRONT of the drive

if i was you id redo all the partition's
this m,eans a total reinstall of windows and her software but she not might want you to do that

NEVER let your time with the puter upset the misses there will be hell to pay trust me i know http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

goodluck to thee.

[mis]

But, I want to use a boot disk to boot Linux. We tried the Lilo thing but as much as Win98 crashes we are having to redo it way to often so the boot disk is the best idea for us right now. Trying to set it up like mine so that I can teach her the things I have managed to figure it out. Don't worry no PC problem will cause a disagreement, I set hers on fire when we first got them and I am still living so I guess I will be fine. Thanks for the info.

[mis]

I got it fixed. I talked to a friend of mine and checked some things. Turns out if I did an ls -l on /dev there was not a hda listed so that is why I could not use fidisk. Had to do this

mknod /dev/hda b 3 0

I could then use fdisk to create the partitions. RH 6.1 is now installed with a few minor problems that I believe I can handle and one more member of the linux community. Thanks for all the help and maybe this info will help someone else as well.

Mis