beating a dead horse?

[Rick G.]

Scenario: I want to install Knoppix on my hard drive as only OS. After several unsuccessful attempts and much wasted time, I’ve discovered that this piece of s--- will not accept any other OS software (tried different ones including 2 M$ programs) for various reasons even after erasing hard drive w/erasing software.
QUESTION: Will getting a new hard drive solve this problem, or am I beating a dead horse?

[chris-harry]

what type of hard drive is it?

because, you might only need to just partion the drive correctly...

[Rick G.]

Thank you c-h for response;


Item Value
Description Disk drive
Manufacturer (Standard disk drives)
Model ST340810A
Bytes/Sector 512
Media Loaded Yes
Media Type Fixed hard disk
Partitions 2
SCSI Bus 0
SCSI Logical Unit 0
SCSI Port 0
SCSI Target ID 0
Sectors/Track 63
Size 37.27 GB (40,015,503,360 bytes)
Total Cylinders 5,169
Total Sectors 78,155,280
Total Tracks 1,240,560
Tracks/Cylinder 240
Partition Disk #0, Partition #0
Partition Size 4.41 GB (4,729,987,584 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset 32,256 bytes
Partition Disk #0, Partition #1
Partition Size 32.85 GB (35,277,742,080 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset 4,730,019,840 bytes

This is hard drive info. Where can I get instructions on how to partition correctly.

[CrashedAgain]

Running from Knoppix CD, type 'sudo cfdisk' in a console shell & post the resulting output. It is highly unlikely that your HD will not allow a change of OS.
"...several unsuccessful attempts..."--What have you tried and what were the problems encountered?

[Rick G.]

I entered cfdisk 2.11u and putzing around here getting nowhere. What's next?

[CrashedAgain]

I entered cfdisk 2.11u and putzing around here getting nowhere. What's next?

just enter 'sudo cfdisk'

'sudo' makes you root user (administrator level user) for one command

'cfdisk' is the program name

cfdisk should detect your HD & display information about all of the partitions it finds.

[Rick G.]

Thanks Crashed Again for your concern; I went to sudo cfdisk and it’s the same as cfdisk 2.11u and I can’t accomplish anything there………………. Anyway just before I came to the thread, I booted up & went to desktop\hard drive icon\properties\device and shut off read only. Then sudo knoppix-installer, which eventually ran me into qtparted and I’m screwing around with this and no clue of what I’m doing ……………………………..HELP!

[chris-harry]

ok... because the document section is down for repair... i'll tell you how i partion me disk... using QTparted...

ok, once its open... all you really want is to make 2 or 3 partions... now... because your drive is an old drive, make a 10Mb partion, and place it at the top of the list... this stops that 1000Cylider error or what ever its called... very helpful partion too....

then make a second partion, this partion is going to be your swap drive... some of the people on this forum say place the swap drive closest to the middle (not passed the 10Mb one), others say have it at the end... me opinion... i really dont care where it goes... now a good size for a swap partion, either 225Mb-500Mb... or double what you have with ram... if you have more then 500Mb of ram... then dont worry about a big swap drive.

To make that partion a swap partion, you have to right hand click on that partion, and godown to format... then a new form will pop up, and in the partion type, click on it and go down to swap partion... then click ok

Next, get the remaining free space, and make it into a linux partion...once again, right hand click on it and in the partion type choose ext3, or linux partion... an ext3 partion i think is the best... :D

After all that... click on file... and goto commit... then you can quit the program after all is done... :D



to tell you the truth i usually dont use QTParted... i use a program i got with me Debian DVD, and its more dos'ed based, but it has alot more freedom, but might be a bit harder because you wont be able to see the partions (figure of speech)...

[chris-harry]

then its pritty much self explanitory from there on... just click, and select, and click... it will go threw "do you want a knoppix or debian system" (i choose debian)... etc...

btw... have fun

[Rick G.]

Thanks c-h for your help today,

Just returned to thread; too late now……just smashed the s--- out of that other computer with a baseball bat………I feel a whole lot better now………….. Just got a little angry I guess

[rrfish72]

Here is what you want to do:

enter cfdisk

Highlight the partition you want to mess with.


cfdisk 2.12h

Disk Drive: /dev/hda
Size: 81964302336 bytes, 81.9 GB
Heads: 16 Sectors per Track: 63 Cylinders: 158816

Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hda1 Primary Compaq diagnostics 4613.90
hda2 Boot Primary NTFS [] 47185.63
hda5 Logical Linux swap / Solaris 560.49
hda6 Logical Linux ext3 20971.05
hda4 Primary Linux ext3 8633.26





[Bootable] [ Delete ] [ Help ] [Maximize] [ Print ] [ Quit ]
[ Type ] [ Units ] [ Write ]

Toggle bootable flag of the current partition

Select delete.

Pri/Log Free Space 8633.26

Then select new [ New ] and these choices will come up:

[Primary] [Logical] [Cancel ]

Select what you wnat the partition to be.

Select the size you want it to be:

Size (in MB): 8633.25

Now I have the same thing I did before just to help walk you through the steps.

Next select the correct type of partition that you want it to be: [ Type ]

01 FAT12 4E QNX4.x 2nd part A7 NeXTSTEP
02 XENIX root 4F QNX4.x 3rd part A8 Darwin UFS
03 XENIX usr 50 OnTrack DM A9 NetBSD
04 FAT16 <32M 51 OnTrack DM6 Aux1 AB Darwin boot
05 Extended 52 CP/M B7 BSDI fs
06 FAT16 53 OnTrack DM6 Aux3 B8 BSDI swap
07 HPFS/NTFS 54 OnTrackDM6 BB Boot Wizard hidden
08 AIX 55 EZ-Drive BE Solaris boot
09 AIX bootable 56 Golden Bow C1 DRDOS/sec (FAT-12)
0A OS/2 Boot Manager 5C Priam Edisk C4 DRDOS/sec (FAT-16 <
0B W95 FAT32 61 SpeedStor C6 DRDOS/sec (FAT-16)
0C W95 FAT32 (LBA) 63 GNU HURD or SysV C7 Syrinx
0E W95 FAT16 (LBA) 64 Novell Netware 286 DA Non-FS data
0F W95 Ext'd (LBA) 65 Novell Netware 386 DB CP/M / CTOS / ...
10 OPUS 70 DiskSecure Multi-Boo DE Dell Utility
11 Hidden FAT12 75 PC/IX DF BootIt




Press a key to continue

12 Compaq diagnostics 80 Old Minix E1 DOS access
14 Hidden FAT16 <32M 81 Minix / old Linux E3 DOS R/O
16 Hidden FAT16 82 Linux swap / Solaris E4 SpeedStor
17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS 83 Linux EB BeOS fs
18 AST SmartSleep 84 OS/2 hidden C: drive EE EFI GPT
1B Hidden W95 FAT32 85 Linux extended EF EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
1C Hidden W95 FAT32 (LB 86 NTFS volume set F0 Linux/PA-RISC boot
1E Hidden W95 FAT16 (LB 87 NTFS volume set F1 SpeedStor
24 NEC DOS 8E Linux LVM F4 SpeedStor
39 Plan 9 93 Amoeba F2 DOS secondary
3C PartitionMagic recov 94 Amoeba BBT FD Linux raid autodetec
40 Venix 80286 9F BSD/OS FE LANstep
41 PPC PReP Boot A0 IBM Thinkpad hiberna FF BBT
42 SFS A5 FreeBSD
4D QNX4.x A6 OpenBSD


Enter filesystem type: 82


It defaults to 82 which is a Linux swap. Change to 83 or whatever you want it

Next, select write: [ Write ]

Enter and confirm with yes.

There you have a new linux partition to work with.

Qt parted or the installer can take care of formatting the partition with ext3 or reiserfs.

Do this for the swap partition also and just select the correct size and type(82).
Hope this helps you.

[CrashedAgain]

Thanks c-h for your help today,

Just returned to thread; too late now……just smashed the s--- out of that other computer with a baseball bat………I feel a whole lot better now………….. Just got a little angry I guess

Scary!!

[chris-harry]

hay once i put me foot threw the front of me computer... :opps:

[rrfish72]

How is that done?

[chris-harry]

um... um... i accidently kicked it... yeah... accidently *cough cough*

[rrfish72]

Are you now beating the dead horse?

[chris-harry]

*stops the beating*... um *hides the bat*... er... um.. no... :twisted: