Gentoo install troubles (cfdisk), please help!

Skics · n00b Joined: 23 Feb 2003 Posts: 11

Hi all,

Well I finally bit the bullet and backed up my entire system so I could install Gentoo. So the install is going fine until I try to partition the drive... I type cfdisk /dev/hda or cfdisk or fdisk /dev/hda and they all give a permission denied/fatal error/error message. Nothing archane it just won't let me. This drive has a copy of Windows XP on it right now, I really don't care if it gets erased. I also tried zeroing the drive as the install manual recommends but it returns a permission denied error as well

This is an ide drive (the only drive, aside from my dvd-rom) on the system.

Any help would be muchly appreciated, thanks in advance.

Skics

drakonite · l33t Joined: 02 Nov 2002 Posts: 768 Location: Lincoln, NE

You are running as root user when running these commands correct?
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Skics · n00b Joined: 23 Feb 2003 Posts: 11

Thats correct sir. I can't find anything on google or on these forums regarding this specific problem. Any ideas?

drakonite · l33t Joined: 02 Nov 2002 Posts: 768 Location: Lincoln, NE

Hmm.. This is an odd problem. I assume you are trying to partition from the livecd then?

If you have a cd from some other linux distro laying around perhaps try using it to get the partitions straight? Or maybe give tomsrtbt disk a try?
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Regor · Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2003 11:00 am Post subject:

This problem seems to be coming up pretty regularly for some people. I've seen it in IRC a few times the last few days.

If anybody comes up with a solution, be sure to post it here. I've not come across a fix yet

-JeaN- · Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2003 12:07 pm Post subject:

Is there some kind of raid in your machine ?
Also did you check the jumpers behind your disk ? Some disks have a "read only" jumpers ..
What kind of motherboard do you have ?
What is your IDE configuration ? ( which one is master, slave, in which ide slot )
Also to boot you use the CD or another linux distribution ? Cause there is some parameters on the kernel that could make it happen, but if you boot from cd it shouldn't be a problem..

gilesjuk

Skics · n00b Joined: 23 Feb 2003 Posts: 11

I have no RAID or SCSI devices. I have one 80Gb Seagate Baracuda IV on the first IDE channel as master, and a dvd/cd-rw combo drive as slave on that same channel. This drive is not new, it has partitions all over it. I have installed Red Hat and Debian on it before, as well as Win2k and WinXp.

I will check for that BIOS virus protection but I do indeed think that that is a long shot. I am booting off of the athlonxp cd and I am going to try and do a stage2 or stage3 install, depending on how much energy I have.

Thanks for the help so far.

Skics · n00b Joined: 23 Feb 2003 Posts: 11

Maybe I will also try moving the drives to separate IDE channels. I will keep you guys posted.

Skics · n00b Joined: 23 Feb 2003 Posts: 11

Ha, I got it licked guys. I just recently changed my drives around inside my system (put both of them on one channel), so I accidentally put them on the secondary IDE channel. This is nodamngood.org so I switched it to primary started the gentoo install process and it works like a charm.

Thanks for the help.