[Gllug] Preparing large hard disk for Debian install

[itsbruce at uklinux.net]

On Mon, Jun 16, 2003 at 02:03:55PM +0100, Taylor James wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> I just bought a 180GB hard disk, and partitioned it for dual booting linux
> and windows using fdisk.
> 
> Having installed windows on the primary partition (80GB), I tried installing
> Debian on the second partition but the tool the installer uses to create and
> format linux partitions (cfdisk) wont run and gives an error (something
> like): "FATAL ERROR: Bad primary > partition 1: Partition ends after
> end-of-disk". I'm guessing it just doesn't support large hard disks.

It's not that it doesn't support large hard disks, just it's having
problems determining the disk geometry because of the way the partition
table has been set up by your DOS/Windows fdisk.  I would recommend that
you start again, let Debian do the partitioning and then install Windows
into the partition that Debian has created for it.

If you are going to do this, I'd make these recommendations:

	1.  Make a boot disk when the Debian installation offers you the
	chance.  The windows installation will probably overwrite your
	Linux boot set-up.
	2.  Don't install Lilo over the MBR, install it to the beginning
	of your root/boot partition.

If you do that then after you've installed Windows all you need to do is 

	1.  Use the boot disk to boot to Linux
	2.  Make sure the Linux root partition is marked bootable
	3.  Change the lilo config to tell it how to boot your Windows
	set-up.

And then you'll find you can boot to either OS.  Pleny of people here
can help you with step 3.


-- 
Bruce

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