Baslinux mailing list

["Greg Mayman" <gmone AT tpg.com.au>]

I have done a very foolish thing, and I can't find my way out of
it.

My intention was to install the Caldera OpenLinux from the CD-ROM
that came with my copy of "The Idiots Guide..." to see what it
had in the way of help files. It turned out to be a BIG mistake.

Here are the steps as I did them.

1. on my W98 computer, I connected up the 1.6Gb HDD as drive D:
and backed up the C: drive (XXCOPY in its CLONE mode is very
useful for this as it copies all the hidden and system files that
other copiers ignore).

2. I then booted from a floppy and repartitioned the C: drive to
one 4Gb primary partition and two 2Gb logical drives, intending
to use one for installing Linux. After this I reloaded the W98
files back into the 4Gb partition.

3. I then tried to install Linux from the CD-ROM but found it
needed to create its own partition. So I quit and removed one of
the two 2Gb logical drives. I then proceeded with the
installation.

4. At one point, I was unable to setup the mouse. The setup
program seemed only to understand one connected to a serial port,
but mine goes to a miniDIN plug, similar to the keyboard
connector. I determined to use one of the hardware analysis
programs to find out more about the mouse.

5. I shut down Linux and tried to boot to Windows, but the
computer refused to do so. It would only boot to Caldera Linux.

6. I consulted the book and found that I should have set the
thing up for multiple OSes _before_ the installation, and that
the thing would only install into a section of the primary
partition. So back to repartitioning and reformatting the hard
disk.

7. But neither the DOS fdisk or the one with the loop BL would
remove an invisible partition where i had installed Linux. But
fortunately the fdisk on the CD-ROM was able to do it.

8. I deleted _all_ drives and partitions from that drive, and set
it up as before, with one 8Gb primary partition, then reformatted
it and XXCOPYed all the stuff from the backup disk. But on
booting, it still took me into Caldera Linux --- which naturally
wasn't there, so it crashed!

9. I booted from a floppy -- at least that still works -- and
tried to run fips.exe from the CD-ROM to set the thing up for
multiple boots. But it told me the disk was unusable: "unknown
type: 0CH. Only DOS partitions may be used (types 4 or 6)."

So I have succeeded in making that 8Gb hard disk unbootable either in
DOS or Linux.

Any suggestions are welcome.....

.   ,-./\
.  /     \     from Greg Mayman, in Adelaide, South Australia
.  \_,-*_/     "Queen City of The South"    34:55 S  138:36 E
.       v