Linux partition problem

[Goma]

I had only Win98 installed, and then I put Linux (Red Hat 7.0) in the same disk. Lilo is in the MBR. I made the partitions with FDisk. I can boot with a diskette and access the linux partition, but I can't boot it. When Lilo boots the machine I can choose 'win' and it's ok, but when I choose 'linux' I get the message:
'Actual size of partition (the linux one) doesn't match partition's table size for it' (in similar words).

Disk: Samsung Spinpoint 20 GB

Partitions:
hda1: Win98 8 GB
hda2: Linux 3.5 GB
hda3: Linux Swap 0.5 MB
hda5: Win98 8 GB

Any clue?

 

[Priit]

Haven't you change the HDD's geometry under BIOS after linux installation ? (eg. from LBA to CHS ?) If you had W98 installed before linux, do you used FIPS to split it's parition ? Anyway, the partitioning of your hard drive is pretty wierd and probably messed up, I would recommend you to delete all the partitions and start from the beginning. First,make one big FAT32 partition all over your hard drive and install Windows. Then use util named FIPS to split it. When installing linux, delete the 2nd partition (FIPS created it and it has system ID of FAT32 probably) and create extended partition. Now create your swap & linux partition and put them into extended partition (make them logical partitions with numbers bigger than 5). After all that, your HDD's partitions should look like something like that:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 447 3590496 b Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda2 448 1027 4658850 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 448 464 136521 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda6 465 1027 4522266 83 Linux

(this is copy-paste from my first HDD-s partitions)

When you do all correctly and install LILO properly, all should work just fine. BTW, I found RH 7 to be pretty buggy distro, you might be better off with RH 6.2. My english sux, hope you'll understand...

 

[Goma]

I didn't change anything, that's the strange thing!!!
and I'm looking for something before reinstalling everything.
Thanks for your help, Priit, and don't worry about your english, I'm form Argentina and mine sucks too

 

[Damaged]

That or when creating the partitions yourself you accidently overlapped them.

Almost forgot! Boot with the CD. Do the rescue thing, then use fdisk to view the parition information.

 

[Priit]

When you have overlapped partitions, there's pretty hard to get things back normal (I don't know is it possible at all) without re-creating them. You may check what windows thinks about it's partition's sizes. If windows thinks that he's partition are bigger than f-disk with linux reports, you probably should follow my first message....