On Tue, 2002-07-16 at 05:40, Sameer Shinde wrote:

Thanks Sameer,

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From the replies I get, I think only U get my problem correctly.

[snip]

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Also, since the error messages already mention that you need to reinitialize the partition tables, I think that is the most likely solution for your problem. Running scan-disk on the partitions from windows is no use - its the partition table that is corrupted, not the FAT or disk space.

If it were my system, I would definitely back up all my data on a new disk and the check this disk. Standard DISCLAIMERS apply ...

Will it be safer to re-initialize the pratition table? Is that the only option I left with. If I free up the space by deleting the linux partitions using 'fdisk' then, I can very well recollect the space in windows without any problem. Again, I know there is a risk in reinitializing the partition table & I do not want to go for this option due to my valuable data

BTW, How to reinitialize the partition table (in safer way)? Where can I get info about it?

[snip]

Sameer(ds) seems to have touched upon right issue (?). It can be a corrupt partition table or it might be something else altogether. If I remember well, first release of Red Hat 7.0 had a installer bug at same stage of installation, but again that is not the trouble here as that was fixed. On 7.2 as far as I know, the disk druid uses GNU parted as its back-end partitioning tool. I had partitioning troubles with my large HDD (40GB), though they were due to an old bios and incorrect geometry. During that I noticed that parted does not necessarily end you partition on a cylinder boundry (there is no reason that it must be so). Other partitioning tools like fdisk will however crib about this.

All of the following assumes that your partition table is corrupt and need to be fixed. If the real issue turns out to be something else this mail be ignored. It is however interesting from points of partition rescue and this cool tool called GNU parted.

If your partition table is corrupt, both parted and linux fdisk will barf when you start them or ask them to verify partition table.

Considering your situation here, I think it is best to rebuild your partition table from scratch. You can do this in following ways using parted. Though I propose this scheme of things, ALL STANDARD DISCLAIMERS ABOUT BACKING UP YOUR DATA APPLY.

1. Read parted user guide on www.gnu.org properly and all of it. It is excellent and will help you.

2. Get a estimate of how much data you need to save from your windows partition.

3. Will the data fit on CD(s) ?, if yes, well burn CD(s) right away, by any means possible, (like taking your disk to a friend who has a CD-BURNER, boot windows, burn your CD.) Initialise your disk using DOS fdisk or linux fdisk/parted/disk druid. Proceed with installation.

4. It won't fit on CD(s)/ you do not want to do it. Get a HDD from some one that has enough FREE UNPARTITIONED disk space to contain your windows partition. Put the second disk as slave. Boot redhat install cd, choose rescue mode, that should leave you with a shell prompt. You have access to GNU parted from shell. Use parted to create a partition in the UNPARTITIONED AREA on the second disk. You can either do this or use the native OS (windows ?) on the second hard drive to partition the free area. (Sticking to native partitioning tools for respective OSes is always the safest route.) This new partition that you create should be of the __same size or larger__ than your Windows partition. It should not be of smaller size. Further do __not__ format the new partition. Now use the partition copying ability of parted to copy you windows partition to the newly created partition on the second disk.

e.g. (parted) cp /dev/hda1 /dev/hdb2

check the exact syntax and more examples in parted USER manual. Be careful not to copy /dev/hda, which is your entire HDD. We only want /dev/hda1 or whatever partition you have.

Once your windows partition(s) is(are) out of the way, reinitialize your partition table recreating exactly the same way your first partition that you saved. You might want make it a few MB more just to be totally safe, however if you had enough free MBs in your initial partition that is not necessary. Again do not format the new partitions.

Once you are sure that the partition table is clean (i.e. fdisk, parted, cfdisk and junta does not barf on it), use parted again to copy back your original partition,

(parted) cp /dev/hdb2 /dev/hda1

Finish your installs and leave happily.

5. This ones least effort and might work. IF AND ONLY IF you have NOT created additional DOS/Windows partitions using linux fdisk and have NOT used them under Windows for some time now, without DOS fdisk knowing about it, can you do the stuff said below. If you do not understand what I just wrote, read again. Once your are dead sure and the situation is as below,

You installed windows with certain number of partitions lets say, 1 primary (c:) 1 extended | `--> 1 logical (d:) 2 . . . If this was the way that DOS fdisk initially initialized your MBR+Partition table. You DID NOT add extra logical DOS drives using Linux and then used them under Windows to store data.

If all of the above conditions result in true,then

boot in "safe mode command prompt only" (Press F8 as windows starts to boot, this needed to be done just before the logo comes up.)

do "fdisk /mbr", this will wipe any boot loader like lilo from MBR as well as put back original partition table as it was when Windows was installed.

Make sure Windows boots properly and you see all your windows partitions as well as data. Proceed with Linux install.

6. Now the most dangerous one, we have no access to any CD-BURER / additional HDD, we can not do instruction 5, then,

-1. Read all HOWTOs related to Partitioning, fdisk etc. 0. take a deep breath and pop in that RHL CD. 1. Boot RHL cd, go in rescue mode, get a shell 2. fdisk -l /dev/hda 3. Note down _all_ that fdisk said it sees, particularly start/ end cylinders for each partition and the associated blocks. 4. Make sure you understand what any and all those numbers mean we don't care for linux partitions right now as we want to reinstall. 5. Delete all of your partitions with linux fdisk. THE IMPORTANT THING TO NOTE HERE IS THAT EVEN IF YOU DELETE YOUR PARTITION, YOUR DATA IS STILL AS IT IS ON THE DISK. 6. Write the blank partition table to disk using the 'w' command of fdisk. With out doing anything else Reboot and come back in rescue mode. 7. Now use linux fdisk again to recreate your previous windows partitions __exactly__ as they were in original fdisk listing that you wrote down. (If you didn't you are dead). Make sure you give the right partition/filesystem id to the partitions. e.g. 83 --> Linux, 82--> Linux Swap, c --> Win95 FAT32, f--> Win95 extended. For full listing see, fdisk's 'l' command.

You might want to use GNU parted instead of fdisk, as fdisk has this thing about DOS partitions, see fdisk's man page. In this case you should have saved the entries for the initial partition table as parted sees them.

8. Write partition table to disk and reboot. 9. Get back in rescue mode. use fdisk -l to see partitions, now try and mount the partition. Peek in to see if you data is still there. It should be there safe and sound. 10. Reboot and proceed with Linux install ahead.

All in all if it works let us know. Others please comment if I am incorrect anywhere in this listing. Suggestions welcome. GNU parted is a excellent tool for partition rescue and related things. I highly recommend all to read the USER manual.

Best regards,

Rajesh

On Wed, 2002-07-17 at 05:56, Sameer Shinde wrote:

On Monday, July 15, 2002 8:05 PM "Rajesh Deo" rajeshdeo@earthlink.net suggested,

[snip]

...

...

BTW, How to reinitialize the partition table (in safer way)?

[snip]

Can U tell me any windows option to reinitialize the partition table? As I'm quite safe with windows.

Thats approach number 5 in my last mail. Softwares like Partition Magic might be able to fix a broken partition table. But I am not sure whether they do, as I never used them. May be some one else on the list has more info on this ??

[snip]

...

Sameer(ds) seems to have touched upon right issue (?). It can be a corrupt partition table or it might be something else altogether. If I

............ ...........

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(parted) cp /dev/hdb2 /dev/hda1

Finish your installs and leave happily.

So far I have not understand the above part of your mail. ( Plz don't mind, as I'm still trying to understand it & have to look at the 'parted' )

Read Partitioning-HOWTO first that will clear basic concepts. Read parted user manual for parted specific help. If you are stuck with something let me know, I will try to explain better. The central idea is to copy a partition as a large binary data file to another area on disk of the same size or larger. This way one can backup entire windows partition on another disk, clean the first disk of any partitions, then recreate new partitions on first disk which are exactly as they were in original partition table, and then copy back the whole old partition to its place on the first disk. This way one can save the trouble of reinstalling windows and other software as well as putting back your data properly.

The steps below I have understood, but still I have some quires, This is to get some more help from you.

[snip]

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You installed windows with certain number of partitions lets say, 1 primary (c:) 1 extended | `--> 1 logical (d:)

I have a 20GB hdd, which I have partitioned as below 4GB * 5 partitions = 20 GB So far the partitions are as below 1 primary [C: ] (4GB) 1 extended ( 16 GB) | `--> 3 logical [ D, E, F] ( 4 GB each)

The 4GB left in extended is free & I'm using it for linux.

Perfect, I guess this means you had no other DOS/Windows partitions created with __Linux__ from a previous install. Then it is safe to do "fdisk /mbr" which should initialize your partition table back to what it was before you began with Linux install.

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2 . If this was the way that DOS fdisk initially initialized your MBR+Partition table. You DID NOT add extra logical DOS drives using Linux and then used them under Windows to store data.

I didn't understand this, but no partitions are created using linux fdisk & are used. The partitions which I had created during the linux installation ( /, /boot, /swap) are now deleted using the linux fdisk & the space is free at present.

_If_ you had a previous linux install and had made DOS partitions using Linux fdisk, then windows fdisk won't know about them, since you did not used windows fdisk to create them in first place, right ?

Since you did not have such partitions with data in it, you are okay to fix your partition table using "fdisk /mbr" command.

...

    If all of the above conditions result in true,then

[snip]

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do "fdisk /mbr", this will wipe any boot loader like lilo from Make sure Windows boots properly and you see all your windows partitions as well as data. Proceed with Linux install.

The MBR is also cleared, system is booting properly in win.

Was the MBR cleared with "fdisk /mbr" ?, if yes, then your partition table should be restored. Use linux fdisk to verify your partition table, if no errors are reported your partition table is probably fine now.

...

6. Now the most dangerous one, we have no access to any CD-BURER /

additional HDD, we can not do instruction 5, then,

The condition is true. Can I proceed further in this condition.

What I meant at start of suggestion 6 was this,

1. No access to CD-BURNER / HDD 2. We have extra DOS partitions created from previous linux install with important data in it. We do not want to loose it by doing "fdisk /mbr" as the Windows fdisk has a copy of mbr which says you do not have these extra DOS partitions. (get this ?)

Since you do not have such extra DOS partitions, your windows backup MBR has a clean partition table structure from your last use of windows fdisk.

Since the above is the case, we do not need to do risky suggestion 6. DO NOT do any part of suggestion 6 if you already restored your partition table with "fdisk /mbr". Though you can still do step number -1. Simple go ahead with linux install. I think this clarifies all your questions below.

...

   -1. Read all HOWTOs related to Partitioning, fdisk etc.
    0. take a deep breath and pop in that RHL CD.

1. Boot RHL cd, go in rescue mode, get a shell
2. fdisk -l /dev/hda
3. Note down _all_ that fdisk said it sees, particularly start/ end cylinders for each partition and the associated blocks.
4. Make sure you understand what any and all those numbers mean

I can do this.

...

       we don't care for linux partitions right now as we want to
       reinstall.

I don't have any linux partitions at present, as I have deleted them & the space is free.

...

5. Delete all of your partitions with linux fdisk. THE IMPORTANT THING TO NOTE HERE IS THAT EVEN IF YOU DELETE YOUR PARTITION, YOUR DATA IS STILL AS IT IS ON THE DISK.
6. Write the blank partition table to disk using the 'w' command of fdisk. With out doing anything else Reboot and come back in rescue mode.

Should I go for this step & ahead ?

...

    7. Now use linux fdisk again to recreate your previous windows
       partitions __exactly__ as they were in original fdisk listing
       that you wrote down. (If you didn't you are dead). Make sure
       you give the right partition/filesystem id to the partitions.

e.g. 83 --> Linux, 82--> Linux Swap, c --> Win95 FAT32, f--> Win95 extended. For full listing see, fdisk's 'l' command. You might want to use GNU parted instead of fdisk, as fdisk has this thing about DOS partitions, see fdisk's man page. In this case you should have saved the entries for the initial partition table as parted sees them. 8. Write partition table to disk and reboot. 9. Get back in rescue mode. use fdisk -l to see partitions, now try and mount the partition. Peek in to see if you data is still there. It should be there safe and sound. 10. Reboot and proceed with Linux install ahead.

If I could manage to get another HDD for backup can I go other way round by DELETING ALL (Win. & Linux ) partitions with DOS fdisk & making a all new clean partitions. & then installing both Windows & Linux.

Sure you can do this, when I suggested copying your entire windows partition, that was simply to ease the trouble of reinstalling windows and all the goodies that you are probably using, including putting your data back to where it was. If this is less worrisome you can go by this way.

But will this help me to reinitialize a partition tables & solve my problem ?

fdisk /mbr will reinitialize your partition table to what it was before you started your linux install.

If you do backups and delete all partitions including windows, and reinstall back all stuff, your will get a clean new partition table.

Both ways you are okay. The first one will save you the trouble of reinstalling windows.

it would be great if you can mail me the install error messages, not that i can guarantee some conclusion out of it, but just to see what stage caused the error. Also make dead sure that your package install size is less than available disk space.

HTH

Rajesh

On Tuesday, July 16, 2002 10:55 PM "Q u a s i" quasar@vsnl.net asked,

[snip]

What is the exact problem with the partition table?

During the installation of RHL 7.1, I get the message, "An error occurred while transferring the install image to your HDD. You are probably out of disk space". The installation aborts here & put me back to the screen form where the installation just starts.

When I got this message @ that time my disk partitions were /boot - 54 MB, swap - 133 MB & / - 3794 MB So when I moved back to change the disk size, I received another message, " The partition table on device hda is corrupted. To create new partitions it must be initialized causing the loss of ALL DATA on this drive." Along with following options [ Initialize ] [ Skip Drive ]

Is the MBR all right?

Yes, I have cleared it with fdisk/mbr & I have no problem booting Windows.

Are your windows partitions all right?

Ya, As nothing is happened to them. If I delete the Linux partitions which I had created during the Linux installation, I can take that free space in Windows with no problem. By doing so I checked all the drives with 'Norton Disk Doctor' but even it didn't show me any problem in partition table. So, I consider windows partitions are all right.

If it is a problem with the

linux partition only then use *latest* fdisk to delete the linux partition(s) and create them again. That's it.

Where can I get * latest* fdisk, I use RHL7.1 & with the fdisk, I tried deleting all the linux partitions & recreating them, but didn't helped. Again my installation aborted by non transferring the install image on hard disk.

Unless your MBR or the *whole* partition table is corrupt you dont need to worry. I find using loadin more convenient than Grub/LILO etc. Also if you do use LILO, use the latest version so that you can avoid the /boot partition.

Again where can I get latest version of LILO, is it separately downloadable or is inbuilt in higher versions of RHL.

Waiting for your helpful reply, Thanks & Regards, SAMEER :) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My Messenger IDs : MSN : s2sameer Yahoo! : s9sameer RediffBol : s2sameer Indiatimes : s2sameer ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At 12:49 AM 7/19/02 -0700, you wrote:

ALL DATA on this drive." Along with following options [ Initialize ] [ Skip Drive ]

you were using fdisk or cfdisk ?? Use only fdisk. I have had problems with cfdisk.

Waiting for your helpful reply,

maybe you should try some different media for installation? Some strange problems do occur from time to time. I remember one with the PCQ RH 6.1 installation on some machines. By no means could one detect or mount vfat partitions on that installation. I and a few others faced the same problem.

Try Debian. It is the Best. :D

q

On Fri, 2002-07-19 at 03:46, Sameer Shinde wrote: [snip]

Depending upon the partition table I mailed in my previous mail I started the Linux installation today. I started with " fdisk/mbr " in windows, then I start the installation, The first message I got is, "Automatic partitioning failed: There is not sufficient disk space in order to automatically partition your hard disk. You will need to manually partition your disk for RHL to install. " Though there were a free space of 3.9GB

Hmm.., What install type was selected ? We never need to choose auto partition since we want to create specific partitions, but then you probably chose that, so far fine, I don't see why you should get that error...

Ah.. may be the installer wants at least one partition to be primary in running its auto-partition script and you can install only in logicals, hence it cribbed.

Along with this message there was 2 options i.e. Disk Druid & fdisk. I moved ahead with fdisk, partitioned the disk in the following order /boot, /, swap, /usr & /home allotting around 2.5GB for /usr & went for custom setup.

I guess one selects thats at very start of installation before partitioning dialog, right ?

The total install size of all the packages was around 1.5GB, even then just before the start of installation & after formatting all the partitions

So the installer knew what sizes the partitions were, as it formatted without reporting any error.

I got another message that, " An error occurred while transferring the install image on your hard disk. You are probably out of disk space." The installation aborted here.

What happens here, the installer dumps you to a shell or the machine just hangs ?

Can you check, at this stage after rebooting in rescue mode, what partition structure linux fdisk reports ? See if you can mount the partitions, since they should be formatted,

# mkdir /tmp/test # mount /dev/hda8 /tmp/test

How could be this possible even though there was total of 1GB difference between install size & the disk space? Every time my installation halts here.

You can atleast find out what errors it reports, try switching to ALT-F2/ F3 etc. to get the screen where one can see the notice/error messages from the installer. Send the errors that are reported when your favorite error happens :-).

P.S. Today I got another problem, my CD-ROM is not accepting any disk. It seems that my machine is gona screw me out :)

Hmm.. flaky computer hardware ?? Or your CD-ROM media is bad, which might cause the installer error if it can not read it properly. Try to install from a different set of CDs, no harm in trying different distribution like Debian.

Best regards,

Rajesh

Dear Sameer, Could you please mail us the complete partition table as reported by 'fdisk'(The GNU/Linux version ofcourse). You can view that by typing in 'p' followed by 'RETURN', once you're at the 'fdisk' prompt. May be we could be of more help then ciao abhijeet

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Disk /tmp/hda : 255 heads, 63 sectors, 2481 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /tmp/hda1 * 1 497 3992121 b win95 FAT32 /tmp/hda2 498 2481 15936480 f win95 Ext'd ( LBA ) /tmp/hda5 498 993 3984088+ b win95 FAT32 /tmp/hda6 994 1489 3984088+ b win95 FAT32 /tmp/hda7 1490 1985 3984088+ b win95 FAT32 --------Below are proposed Linux partition utilizing 3891MB space------------ --------Plz check if they are mounted properly---------------------------------

Everything looks okay to me, except how did the device file get to the '/tmp' folder?? Normally it resides in the '/dev' folder. That should not matter though...as far as the driver knows abt that.

Given by me Taken by Linux /tmp/hda8 ( /boot ) 1986 1988 24066 83 Linux 20 MB 23 MB /tmp/hda9 ( / ) 1989 2052 514048+ 83 Linux 495 MB 503 MB /tmp/hda10 ( swap) 2053 2069 136521 82 Swap 127 MB 133 MB /tmp/hda11 ( /usr ) 2070 2388 2562336+ 83 Linux 2500 MB 2503 MB /tmp/hda12 ( /home ) 2389 2481 746991 83 Linux remaining 729 MB ____________________________________________________________________________ _

Total Install Size : 2293MB I'm planning to proceed with this format, suggestions are required.

Well, since a lot has been in discussion on the above partitions, I'll put in my opinion. I believe what's important is that you must be able to keep 'data' and 'system' files separate. Your program files in the '/bin','/sbin','/usr' etc. folders classify as 'system'. The home directory, in my case classifies as 'data'. Other 'data' partitions could be where you keep downloads, kernel sources for your custom kernel, code from your own programs, personal work etc. The advantage of such a classification is that one can reinstall very easily on top of the existent data folders. Not that you expect to do that often, but it does help when you want to try out other distros. The home file configs will have to be tweaked a bit, when doing so.

Advantage #2: you move with your hard disk to a new location, mount the data partitions only and get the data transfer done.

As far as you take care of these considerations, IMHO, any system partitions will do. AFAIK all modern BIOSes handle the 1024 cylinder problem in some suitable manner.

So now Sameer, have you installed linux on the partitions as above? And if you have can you boot into it? If you can't have you installed lilo and configured it properly?

Expecting lotsa answers abhijeet

p.s.: Note the double 'e'.