Re: New Debian user needs help: Problems about partitioning, booting from harddisk, etc.
Huang Yan wrote:
>
> 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 and how can Debian boot >from my secondary harddisk? Should I set the harddisk mode from LBA to NORMAL >before installing Debian?
First, it sounds like you have an old? bios, if it reports 528m instead
of 2.1g. I would double-check that; maybe cmos isn't setup correctly.
Look in /etc/lilo.conf and see if it has 'boot=/dev/hda'. Since your
machine aparently can't boot from hdd in your setup, try having lilo
occupy the master boot record on the primary hard drive. Of course,
don't change the root line which should still specify hdd1 as where
linux is.
LBA is not a problem, and shouldn't be for you unless you have a real
old bios. Linux is quite happy with my 4g hard drive in LBA mode.
> 2. What's the difference between primary partition and logical partition in >Linux? Which should I select when I partition my harddisk for Debian?
logical parts are a creation of DOS/Win world. Linux works with both
types. If you can, avoid using logical partitions. Since you have only
one DOS/Win partition, there should be no need for a logical partition.
> A lot of thanks!!
>
--
Ed C.
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