Linux on PowerPC FAQ-O-Matic : Start Here! (Getting started/First day) :
How do I repartition my hard drive?
I used a combination of the "Apple Drive Setup" tool and the "pdisk" program
(both from within Macos)
first, i got a few things together:
- a blank zip disk and a zip drive
- a bootable macos CD so i can do a macos install
- "pdisk" from the mklinux ftp site (ftp.mklinux.apple.com)
-- Documentation for pdisk is the pdisk.html file in the MacOS_Utilities directory.
- "Apple Drive Setup" from apple
now, i did this:
- booted off the CDROM
- ran "Apple Drive Setup" and partitioned my 2 gig disk with "3 partitions":
- 1 gig of "apple standard" (important, don't use "apple extended"
(HFS+)... your macos boot partition MUST be apple standard to boot
mklinux)
- 128 megs (for the swap partition)
- 915 megs (for the root partition)
then, i ran pdisk:
- delete the 128 meg and 915 meg partitions, and then use the "c" command
from within "pdisk" to recreate the same 128 and 915 meg partitions, but this
time they will end up with the "UNIX_SVR4" partition type
then i installed macos onto the macos partition and rebooted.
(see the next section about how to continue to install booter)A more current version of pdisk than that found in the MkLinux book is http://sunsite.utk.edu/ftp/pub/linux/LinuxPPC/linuxppc-R4/RedHat/tools/pdisk.hqx (or an any other ftp mirror site of linuxPPC)
I have the cd, I have a 4-gig hard drive, and I'd partitioned it into 1.5g(HDF+)Mac, 2.5g(HDF)root (I know, I know, I’ll be cutting that down), and 62m(HDF)swap. I was following the newbie-friendly instructions in the pdf for reformatting with Apple Drives Setup.
I’d done the reformatting mentioned above with ADS. Then, I was supposed to install (well, my system, to start with....) the BootX stuff from the cd, and then restart and let it boot me into X Windows. Right? Right.
Welp, I went into pdisk, and laid it out the way I was supposed to, just like the pdf (which I *printed*out*, BTW....) says, and I was going to let it do its stuff when I read this notice about an error I might get, if the stuff in BootX’s prefs was wrong, and how, if I got that error, I should go back and check their prefs. Well, seeing as BootX had swept right by me (I was really excited and didn’t know to hit tab), I thought I should go back and check beforehand.
Which I did.
It was all ok.
So I restarted, and went back into linux, into the installer, and into pdisk.
Eek!
I type in pdisk
/dev/hde
and it tells me
pdisk: can’t open file ‘/dev/hde’ (no such device)
Which is bad. (It didn’t do that the first time: it found it that time, and there *is*too* a disk called hde in the dir /dev/ -- I checked myself, using a ls command (with -l!), a >, a more and everything *proud*.)
I can get into top-level, but I can’t trick it in into letting me back into where I was before-- where I get to create and delete partitions, what I need to do.
I went through it in the top-level, twice-- once from XTerm, once from the MacOS port. (The second time, I had the html documentation with me, so it was a little bit easier.)
What I’m supposed to do is enter the command e. Then, it’s supposed to prompt me for the name of the device-- which, from the fortune, should be in the format /dev/scsi<bus>.<id> . Only problem is, when I do that, it says it
can’t open file ‘/dev/scsi0.0’
When I tell it to L , it does so well enough-- first the partition map, then the drivers, then a string of errors on how it can’t find a bunch of /dev/hd* and /dev/scs***
It does the same thing when I try that from inside XTerm, only then it doesn’t give me the partition map.
It started this when I quit pdisk and tried to get back in (I think I quit it properly, with a q, and *then* rebooted with the button on the installer (the command “reboot” wouldn’t work, on account of how it couldn’t find file “shut down”, I believe), and kept it up even after I reformatted the disk, zeroed all the data, and reinstalled my system and the Linux BootX stuff.
And now I’m stuck.
Sorry this is so long.
Any help?
(BTW, any email replies (I should be so lucky!) should go to hcfahey@ziplink.net .)
I think you are using the wrong specification for your SCSI device. You gave the command [root@(none) ~]# pdisk /dev/hde and it tells me pdisk: can’t open file ‘/dev/hde’ (no such device) --------------- try this instead [root@(none) ~]# pdisk /dev/sda use sda for the first SCSI device, sdb for the second, etc... --------------- *** This answer is based on using the 1999 R5 installation from PPC.com/PPC.org and following the instructions in the linuxppc-guide-990811.pdf, page 18 - "Secondary SCSI drives would be /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, etc. based on the order that the kernel finds them on the SCSI bus." ;) hope this helps
'Kernel cannot read extended partitions' solution for install