RedHat 7.2 Installation Woes (Partitioning)

[MonstaThrilla]

Hey everyone,

I'm trying to install RedHat 7.2 on my computer, and I'm getting to a roadblock every time the partitioning section of the installation process (anaconda) comes up. I try to let the installer automatically configure the partitions for me, but I get the error message "Cannot create selected partitions as primary partitions".

I have a 60 GB IBM 60GXP, broken up into 2 partitions using Partition Magic, a 40 GB NTFS partition that has Win2K on it and a 20 GB Media FAT32 partition. I've made both partitions primary.

Thanks.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Ok simple math: 40+20 = 60. 60 GB drive - 40GB NTFS partition = 20. 20GB partition - 20GB FAT32 partition = 0. Unless you are 1337 enough to be able to magically make your drive larger, you will need space on the drive to install linux. Its a fact of life, OSes need a place to install to. BTW, start-->> run -->> calc will bring up a calculator for further math problems like this one.

 

[Rick25]

First bit of advice only make the first partion Primary. Everything else should be a logical drive
within and extended partition. Just makes the lettering sequence for drives easier, particularly with two+ drives.

Second you're going to need two empty partions for Linux. Unformatted is fine, DiskDruid will do that.

 

[MonstaThrilla]

I thought Disk Druid would create a new ext3 partition on one of the existing ones. There's that option in the installer program...

Oh well, I'll follow your advice and free up some space. Thanks.

 

[Louie1961a]

Noc is correct (although he is rather harsh about it today). You need to free up space. I agree with Rick that you are better off creating logical drives on an extended partition. I think there is a limit on the number of primary partitions you can have on a given hard drive (4 I think?) and linux can live in a logical drive no problem. You will want to use partition magice to free up some space, but you can also do all of your partitioning there as well, before you install linux. It might make your life easier. That 20 gb partition, is that empty (i.e., did you free up space and put it into that partiion? If yes, I would delete it. If no, shrink both partitions to create free space. Then from within partition magic, create an extended partition that occupies the total of your free space, and with in that, create at least 3 ext2 logical drives: a 24 mb boot partition, a 256mb swap partition, and the balance to your "/" root partition. When you install red hat, /dev/hda5 will be your boot, /dev/hda6 will be swap, and /dev/hda7 will be "/". all you will need to do from within disk druid is assign the mount points, and if you desire, format them as ext3 partitions instead of ext2.

Good luck

 

[MonstaThrilla]

Well, I followed everyone's advice and everything worked out. I have no idea why I thought Disk Druid would create a new partition on an existing one. I think Mandrake did that for me, though I might be wrong...


Anyways...thanks everyone.