Baslinux mailing list

[baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org]

On Mon, 30 Jul 2007, baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

> sindi keesan wrote:
> > The cfdisk that came with BL2 does not make extended linux partitions.
>
> According to this,
> http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/IBM7248-HOWTO/cfdisk.html, cfdisk
> automatically makes extended partitions as needed.

I will try this.  If I try to make hdb4 out of the free space after three 
primary partitions, it offers me Primary Logical or Cancel.  Not extended.
I chose Logical and it made hdb5 Logical 500MB and the rest Logical free 
space.  Nothing about extended.  Then hdb6 500MB Logical.  Maybe there is 
an Extended hdb4 that is not listed in the table.  Let's see what happens 
if I write this (now that I can do a rescue with PQMAGIC).

> > fdisk -l says:
> > Unable to seek on /dev/hdb.
> >
> > cfdisk:  fdisk /dev/hdb says
> > FATAL ERROR:  Bad logical partition 4:  Partition ends before sector 0.
>
> It seems as though your partition table got corrupted (due to some
> kind of error?).

I don't trust busybox fdisk for this now.

> > How do I fix this problem other than transferring files to a different
> > drive and reformatting this one with dd?
>
> I think you would need to use a more advanced partitioning tool, one
> designed to fix partition table errors. If you happen to have a backup
> of the partition table/boot sector area, and did not change anything
> else, you should be able to restore that and try again.  Otherwise I
> don't know of any way, except for re-partitioning.

PQMAGIC worked.

> > Another drive let me make a fourth primary partition as DOS extended with
> > a linux partition in that, but it messes up the drive letters on hda which
> > is four DOS partitions.
>
> What is the difference between DOS and linux extended? AFAIK they are the 
> same.
>
> Were the drive letters scrambled in DOS?

Yes, that is my problem.  I would like to have DOS set up the same on all 
my computers on hda, and have the same files in D: everywhere (so I can 
also put them on the path in autoexec.bat).  This is ideal, but not 
essential.

When I made a DOS extended partition hdb5, D: was then empty.  I thought 
my partition table went bad in DOS and replaced the drive but the next 
drive had the same problem.


I used cfdisk to make two logical 500MB partitions hdb5 and hdb6.
It wrote partition table to disk.

I tried to format with mke2fs.

I was told that hdb5 apparently does not exist.  Did not come with BL2 
but I could mknod /dev/hdb5 b 3 69 and 6 b 70.

mke2fs /dev/hdb5
/dev/hdb5:  Invalid argument passed to ext2 library while setting up 
superblock.

fdisk /dev/hdb reveals that these logical drives are not labelled as to 
type, just 'Logical Linux'.  I try to make them linux ext2 (type 83) and 
nothing happens.

How do I make these partition type ext2 so I can format with mke2fs?

Sindi

> David