On Sun, 4 Apr 2004, Vince wrote:
> Peter Schmitt wrote: 
>
> I've done this at least five times on five different machines
> with no problems.  w2k, then linux with grub.
>
> 1st install w2k and left plenty of room of free, unformated
> disk space for linux, then
> for the linux install made sure it went on the un-formated space.
>
In my case, (linux) fdisk seems to be the problem.
After installing RedHat Win2000 would allow (re)installing only
after removing all partitions, and making a new partition with Windows.
All other attempts ended in "invalid partition table" (windows)
or "partition boundaries do not coincide with cylinder boundaries" (or
similar, linux).

Even adding a single second primary partition with linux
ended with "inaccesible_boot_device" (Windows).
(Adding a logical partition in an extended partition generated by
windows might work -- I shall have to do more experiments)

--
Peter Schmitt                 Peter.Schmitt@ap.univie.ac.at

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On Thu, 8 Apr 2004, Peter Schmitt wrote:
> On Sun, 4 Apr 2004, Vince wrote: 
> In my case, (linux) fdisk seems to be the problem.
>
I _may_ have discovered the source of my problem
(but not its explanation):

After using w2k to fill up the hard disk with 4 partitions
(3 primary and 1 extended)
fdisk (linux) (still) reported 19452 cylinders,
but showed that w2k had only used 16709 of them
-- the rest seems to have "disappeared".
When I used linux to partition the rest of the disk (after installing
linux) I naturally used all the space indicated,
and this seems to have damaged and/or irritated w2k.

How can this happen. Is windows diskpart right and linux fdisk wrong,
or vice versa?
(At least linux can use the partitions as prepared by w2k :-)

Peter
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Peter Schmitt                 Peter.Schmitt@ap.univie.ac.at

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Peter Schmitt <schmitt@ap.univie.ac.at> wrote in message news:<Pine.OSF.4.44.0404081951310.
904086-100000@balan.ap.univie.ac.at>...
> On Sun, 4 Apr 2004, Vince wrote: 
> In my case, (linux) fdisk seems to be the problem.
> After installing RedHat Win2000 would allow (re)installing only
> after removing all partitions, and making a new partition with Windows.
> All other attempts ended in "invalid partition table" (windows)
> or "partition boundaries do not coincide with cylinder boundaries" (or
> similar, linux).
>
> Even adding a single second primary partition with linux
> ended with "inaccesible_boot_device" (Windows).
> (Adding a logical partition in an extended partition generated by
> windows might work -- I shall have to do more experiments)

As Vince mentioned, leaving  free space for your Linux installation --
after installing W2K -- is the best way to go.  It may depend on your
W2K installation, but I've always left the free space _unpartitioned_
as Win usually mucks up the partition type needed by Grub to load its
proper Stage1_5 file.

Question is:  How are you getting that free space?  W2K will use one
partition for the whole disk with a default W2K install.  Are you
shrinking the Win primary partition after installing W2K?  With what
tool?  What commands exactly?

Once you have W2K running well on the disk _with_ free space, you
should be able to install Linux with no problems.  Real question to
prepare for is choice of boot loader  -- ntldr, Grub, or "other".  Be
sure you understand what is needed to do this properly, as each
loader/setup will offer "quirks" that you must adapt to.  Defaults
will often not be what you intended.

The source of your problem lies in the answer to the "Question" above,
I think.  It re-writes the partition table info in a way W2K doesn't
like.  There are several thinks that can make W2K not like the
changes.

hth,
prg
email above disabled

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On 10 Apr 2004, P Gentry wrote:
> Peter Schmitt <schmitt@ap.univie.ac.at> wrote in message news:<Pine.OSF.4.
44.0404081951310.904086-100000@balan.ap.univie.ac.at>... 
[]> > >[vbcol=seagreen] 
[][vbcol=seagreen] 
[][vbcol=seagreen]
> As Vince mentioned, leaving  free space for your Linux installation --
> after installing W2K -- is the best way to go.  It may depend on your
> W2K installation, but I've always left the free space _unpartitioned_
> as Win usually mucks up the partition type needed by Grub to load its
> proper Stage1_5 file.
>
As I mentioned in a previous followup, in my case the problem
is (seems to be) just the opposite:
Partitioning with RedHat somehow destroyed the partitions for w2k,
while partitioning using window seems to work.
But w2k does not use all the cylinders reported by linux!

> Question is:  How are you getting that free space?  W2K will use one
> partition for the whole disk with a default W2K install.  Are you
> shrinking the Win primary partition after installing W2K?  With what
> tool?  What commands exactly?
>
I used w2k setup to format a partition and install w2k there.
This also (seemingly) only worked with an empty partition table
(using partitions prepared by linux ended in failure :-(
probably because I (naturally) used the whole disk as shown by fdisk.

> Once you have W2K running well on the disk _with_ free space, you
> should be able to install Linux with no problems.
>
well -- in my case this did not work,

> Real question to
> prepare for is choice of boot loader  -- ntldr, Grub, or "other". Be
> sure you understand what is needed to do this properly, as each
> loader/setup will offer "quirks" that you must adapt to.  Defaults
> will often not be what you intended.
>
My question:
Now when I have both w2k and linux installed
(w2k booting from the harddisk, linux booting from a bootdisk,
for the moment):
Do I have to use the windows bootloader (as suggested),
or can I install grub or lilo in the MBR?

> The source of your problem lies in the answer to the "Question" above,
> I think.  It re-writes the partition table info in a way W2K doesn't
> like.  There are several thinks that can make W2K not like the
> changes.
>
As explained,
the problem occured even before linux or a grub/loadlin is installed!
(and seems to be caused by fdisk)

thanks,
Peter
--
Peter Schmitt                 Peter.Schmitt@ap.univie.ac.at

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