partitioning/installing/qtparted/cfdisk nothings working :(

[dresac]

Well I started out attempting to partition some space from my XP hd for Linux and a swap, everything went great until I got the error:

"Error: Formatting of failed. Some messages from mkfs.ex3: useage mkfs.ex3["..etc - I truncated most of it because it's just argument use information.

Ok so, I figured that there was something wrong with my partition, so I gave up on keeping Windows in tact and formatted the whole thing. So there it is; 20 gigs of free unpartitioned space.
I load up my Knoppix cd and first try qtparted. I was able to create a 10 gig, primary, linux partition and then created 1 gig primary partition dedicated to my swap. Simple enough.. everything partitioned right. So I Ctrl+Alt+F1 - typed 'sudo knoppix-installer' and began my installation. Everything seemed fine. The linux partition was detected. I set my passwords, username, etc. Then we get to the Yes/No confirmation screen. I accept and then am prompted with the same error I received before:

"Error: Formatting of failed. Some messages from mkfs.ex3: useage mkfs.ex3["..etc - I truncated most of it because it's just argument use information.

Hmm this is strange, I completely reformatted the drive and am still getting this stupid Formatting error. Ok, so I try cfdisk.
I do the same thing, only this time I set my swap partition to extended (since qtparted wouldn't let me, lol) and the partitions are set up once again. I load the installer and the same thing happens. I get the same error.
Well, I begin to think that it is something wrong with the way im partitioning it, SO I follow some guide that instructs me that you will partition inside of the setup (using cfdisk) SO I boot up with my win floppy and fdisk the hard drive clean again.
I begin the Knoppix installation this time with no set partitions. Knoppix informs me that I haven't met the requirments and now needs me to partition my drives, so I select partition and then select the drive I have been working with (hdb). Guess what, another error:

"Opened disk read-only - you have no permission to write." (i press enter)
"Fatal Error: Cannot read disk drive."

And thus, I am here...

[mzilikazi]

I admire your perserverance. It has been my experience that zeroing the entire drive, then partitioning and formatting your partitions is a good idea especialy if you had windows partitions. So I would do this:

Boot Knoppix
open a terminal and get root
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda

This will take a while. A long while. You'll get an 'Out of diskspace' error when it's done.

Of course you want to be sure that /dev/hda is the right drive or......

Install XP
DO NOT let XP use the entire drive- only what you need.
You may want to create yet another partition to share between Knoppix & XP.

Install Knoppix

Rule of thumb. It is best to make win partitions w/ a win partition utility and Linux partitions w/ a Linux utility.

[dresac]

hmm..well i went to super and entered it in... the computer seems to be processing something, but I didn't get any sort of confirmation that the command was correct. What is this doing exactly?

edit: ah I see, its sort of like an extensive format

[mzilikazi]

hmm..well i went to super and entered it in... the computer seems to be processing something, but I didn't get any sort of confirmation that the command was correct. What is this doing exactly?

edit: ah I see, its sort of like an extensive format

You see nothing? Good! It IS a format- a low-level format in fact that literally writes zeroes to the entire disc surface. There is nothing left on the disc (well ok maybe a forensics specialist could find something).

[dresac]

well, I did everything, EXACTLY... after XP was installed, I booted up in Knoppix, made my partitions and attempted the install, same error.

Ugh.. well, not sure what else I can really do. Guess I can just run linux from a cd whenever I get bored with Windows lol cause it doesn't like me apparently.

Thanks mzilikazi


Is there any possible way to just copy the files over to the HD manually? I plan on using GAG to boot so not sure how I could include Knoppix... this would be a great alternative if its possible.

[user unknown]

In your first post, you mention:

mkfs.ex3 but on my system, it should be
mkfs.ext3

can this be the reason, or was it only a typo here?

[mzilikazi]

Try formatting the partition yourself.

mke2fs -j /dev/hda?

Then launch the installer.
Configure installation
Quit
Yes (save changes)

xedit .knofig

I forget the syntax ATM but change 'format partition' variable to "no"

Save the file and restart the installer. You DO NOT need to load a configuraion as it will automatically use .knofig. Hopefully that works.

[dresac]

all right, well I was able to bypass that error, but came across another one saying my mounting has failed. Problem is, everything should already be mounted lol, I think?
I've mounted it (mount /dev/hdb2) before the install and still seems to get error..

[garyng]

Instead of struggling with partition, why not just use a file on either FAT32 or NTFS for swap. There may be some performance hit but since swap is the last resort so it doesn't really matter as more RAM would be the solution if such a situation occurs.

[dresac]

I'm not sure what you mean... the swap partition doesn't really even seem like much of a problem here. I think the failure to mount is coming from my linux hd partition (even though it doesn't say so)