Re: New Debian user needs help: Problems about partitioning, booting from harddisk, etc.
> I've just downloaded and installed Debian, the following problems were encountered:
>
> 1. My PC have 2 harddisks and 1 CD-ROM:
> Primary IDE Master: 4.3G (hda), LBA MODE
> Primary IDE Slave: NONE
> Secondary IDE Master: SONY CD-ROM(CDU611)
> Secondary IDE Slave: 2.1G (hdd), LBA MODE
>
> I installed Windows95 osr2 on hda first and then installed Debian on hdd from drive c. The installation of Debian seemed to be successful(except before LILO was installed, it's said that Debian would try to boot from my secondary harddisk but perhaps my CMOS doesn't support it), but after reboot Debian failed to boot from hdd. And I noticed that the size of my secondary harddisk(2.1G) in CMOS Setup Menu had been set to 528MB. How to explain this?
1) One possible explenation is that your CMOS doesn't support booting from the
secondary IDE interface ("secondary harddisk")
and how can Debian boot from my secondary harddisk?
In view of 1), it might be that Debian can not boot from your secondary
harddisk. You might want to put the 2.1G HD on your primary IDE as the slave.
Another thing that might help is the /usr/doc/lilo documantation (like
Manual.txt.gz)
Should I set the harddisk mode from LBA to NORMAL before installing Debian?
2) IMHO, no. I think that your 4.3G HD is not shown in your CMOS for its
correct size as well, because that is how your CMOS is desgined. The fact that
both HD are recognized as LBA implies that everything is OK.
>
> 2. What's the difference between primary partition and logical partition in Linux? Which should I select when I partition my harddisk for Debian?
Since there is a limit of 4 to the number of primary partitions (On a regular
PC), an extended partition was invented to be able to hold as many logical
partiotions as desired. So, basicaly, one can have its disk has as many
partitions as he wants. I don't know what other implications this situation
have from the sys designer and sys admin point of view.
For how to partition your HD I suggest that you will take a look at the Debian
FAQ.
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