Below is my computer specification: hda(maxtor) & hdb (wes. digi.) both 40GB each hda 40GB WinXP Ntfs hdb1 /boot (1st 1024 cylinder) -ext3 100MB hdb2 /Win98SE -vfat about 20GB hdb3/root -ext3 less than 20GB hdb4 extended parition hdb5 swap 256MB Help me!!! I'm a linux newbie. I tried more than 10 times already to reformat & repartition my harddisk in Fat32 & ext3 format (I afraid hd with damaged to many modify it structure, will it be?). Tell me how do you all make partition of your harddisk to place redhat & win98se OS? What did you use, Window's fdisk or redhat's disk druid to make partition? Which OS should place on Primary partition or Extended partition? The latest setting is listed above. I use redhat's disk druid to make /boot partition (in ext3) on 1st 1024 cylinder. Then follow above setting. I want make (50%-50%) for each OS, & also I want to make a /boot partition because I want use Winxp loader to boot 3 OS to create "bootsect.lnx" method. Before I only able use grub to boot but lilo cannot, why? Tell me in detail. Thanks a lot.

First off, I think "hdb3 /root -ext3 less than 20GB" should be "hdb3 / -ext3 less than 20GB" as /root refers to root's home directory and not the root of the filesystem (ie "/") The extended partition is not needed as you only have a total of four, so providing the you don't want to add any more partitions on the same disk at a later date you can make them all primary. I would suggest the following: hda 40GB WinXP Ntfs hdb1 /boot (1st 1024 cylinder) -ext2 100MB and make it bootable hdb2 swap 256MB hdb3 / -ext3 20GB hdb4 /mnt/windows -vfat about 20GB....just fill up the rest of the disk.

I don't know the Redhat installation program / disk druid automatically create extended partition. Last time, I use Win98 scandisk to scan my c: drive, it got many errors then I stop checking then type "dir" to list many files & folder. The computer list down quite a number of unknown characters then follows with some uncreated folder before. Then I type "fdisk/status", The computer list down my harddisk status however it doesn't show any percentages usage of my harddisk space. Tell me, which partition program you use Window's fdisk or Redhat's disk druid or its fdisk? Thanks a lot.

I would use DOS fdisk to create one 20Gb partition for windoze, install win98, then install redhat and use the partitioning during setup to create the rest of the partitions. You may need to do an advanced or expert setup to have more control over whether the partitions created and primary or extended.