I have an 8.0 GB IDE hard drive with just one partition (the 8 gigs) running Windows 95 OSR2 with a FAT32 file system. I would like to install LINUX on my system, but I know that two new partitions are in order. I tried using the simple FDISK program to create a partition. When I tried I received an error that said that I did not have enough memory to create the partition. I tried the latest version of PowerQuest's PartitionMagic, but when I applied the changes I received a 59% error and the partition was never created. I even tried the partition utility that came with the LINUX CD and it produced the same "Not Enough" memory error. I was trying to make a 4 gig partition and I have 7 gigs left to do it with so I have enough hard disk space. I would appreciate a reason and possible solution as to what gives with this problem. Thanks.

For starters, some of the released versions of linux have a partition utility which is not compatible with FAT32.
Secondly, the error with PartitionMagic could indicate a damaged hard disk or corrupt files.
Possible solution:
re-format the hard disk
use the boot-up floppy and run scandisk.
use FDISK and remove all partitions, re-creating a 4 Gb primary.
install windows.

Well,
First: you have an 8 gig drive.
Second: running win95b(fat32), one partition.

Which means by default when fdisk was first used to create partition, it asked if you wanted whole drive as primary partition and active!!!

which means you have an 8 gig drive with one 8 gig partition=(c:).

So either have to use some resizing util (which I suggest you don't), or delete current partition and recreate with proper size.

Or,
sometimes if in windows while running fdisk, you will get that partitcular message.

Or,
since I see you have ptmagic, if you have used it in past to create, delete, move, resize, any of your partitions, and you are not using all drive capacity in one partition. The partition table is not correct. I have found that usually the only way to fix is to low level format (like debug, or a zerofill util), and then start over.

Think of it this way,

A drive contains up to 4 blocks(p-partitions)
blocks can be any size as long as they don't total more than drive capacity, IE: 800 meg drive.
B1=200meg,B2=200meg,B3=200meg, B4=250
which equals 850 megs(wrong can't do that), but 200,200,200,200 == 800 meg(thats ok).

Now when using third party util(ptmagic) instead of fdisk this happens.

if you create 4 200meg partitions, then each block = 200megs. Now let say later on you delete your partition(f: or B4), then you later delete partition(D: or B2).
Now if you use a third party util to create a new partition it will usually ask you what kind of partition(pri,ext,log) and what block you want to use(in this case only two blocks are avail, B2 and B4).

But with fdisk it will just ask what size you want to make it. Do you see what happens????? fdisk will create a partition that will be located at the beggining of drive and at end drive. Now as time goes by you decide to delete one or all but the first(c:), and then maybe try to recreate then slam, you get that message. It's all do to the partition tables not laid out correctly, or corrupt(time for debug or zerofill).

Well there are a few other things such as disk drive overlay, bios translations, and o.s versions that can cause same issue. But the most common is what I describe up to this last paragraph.

Hope this helped.
any questions, just email me.

DOUGLAS FULLER