Problems with HD Partitions During Slink Installation

[Dan Hatton <dch24@hermes.cam.ac.uk>]

I'm trying to install Slink from a bootable CDROM into my /dev/hda2
partition (which I'm intending to split into several partitions for
various bits of the installation at install-time.)  The dbootstrap program
gets as far as the `Partition a Hard Drive' stage, where it runs cfdisk,
which bombs out with a fatal error message claiming I have a `Bad
Partition Table.' It offers to delete the partition table and continue,
but warns that this will delete all data on the disc, so I'm rather
unwilling to do it (I have a Windows 98 filesystem on /dev/hda1, which I'd
like to keep.) 

The /dev/hda2 partition was created using fips, and is of size 4032MB (512
cylinders.)  On choosing the `View Partition Table' option in the
dbootstrap menu, both the partitions appear correctly except that
/dev/hda1 is not marked as active, when in fact it is active (bootable.)

Can anyone help me out, please?

Thanks

Dan Hatton