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gte258v
n00b
Joined: 30 Jun 2003
Posts: 25
Location: Atlanta, GA
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 Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2003 7:42 pm Post subject: Does fdisk think I have an extra hard drive? |
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I'm trying to install Gentoo on a Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop. When I went to partition the disk, I got the results below, which I found a bit confusing. Bear in mind, this laptop has only one hard drive (20 GB).
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# fdisk /dev/hda
You will not be able to write the partition table.
Device contains neither a valid DOC partition table, nor Sun, SGI, or OSF disklab
el
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
content won't be recoverable.
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/hda: 224 MB, 224800768 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 27 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
<nothing was listed here>
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# fdisk /dev/hdb
Unable to open /dev/hdb
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# fdisk /dev/hdc
The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 2432.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/hdc: 20.0 GB, 20003880960 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2432 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdc1 1 5 40131 de Dell Utility
/dev/hdc2 * 6 2431 19486845 7 HPFS/NTFS
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So does Gentoo think I have 2 hard drives? Is hda the cdrom (I noticed that the LiveCD iso I burned is the exact size listed in hda)? Should I just continue with the installation guide, substituting hdc wherever I see hda? And why does it skip hdb? |
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thedarkharlequin
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Joined: 07 Jan 2005
Posts: 1
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| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2005 7:31 am Post subject: same problem |
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| I have the inspirion 1100 with the 20Gb HD and i had the same results, although my /dev/hda was a bit larger, but i found that by installing on /dev/hdc it worked fine. i believe the DELL edition of WindowsXP that comes with your comp installs an invisible partition to store something. I'll be damned if i know what is, but i f*kd my whole drive up on my first attempt, cleared, partitioned and reinstalled XP and all of my registration keys for programs and such were still there. but then again, I'm hardly knowledgable on this. it's all just speculation. |
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Corvy
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Joined: 16 Apr 2003
Posts: 34
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| Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2005 8:30 am Post subject: |
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Maybe Dell uses the secondary IDE controller to connect the HD. I would just install on hdc, if you wonder about it anymore why not call Dell and ask why the disk is recogniced as the primary disk on the secondary IDE controller.
Anyways, does it matter? 
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Best regards
Stian B. Barmen |
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Installing Gentoo
