Hi -- You said: > Currently, I have a DOS partition that takes up 25% of the > total disk space and the rest is empty. My concern was if I would lose > any data on the DOS partition if I create two Linux partitions using > Linux fdisk on the empty disk space.
I suppose the installation notes are conservative because cfdisk is not too forgiving if you incorrectly set your disk partition table and then write the new table to disk. But note that you have to do two things wrong in order to mess yourself up with cfdisk. First you have to set up a bad partition table, then you have to write that to disk. It sounds like you have one entry in your disk partition table now. It probably looks something like this: /dev/hda1 Boot Primary DOS 16-bit >=32Mb 200.52 Just move your cursor down one line (so that it is NOT highlighting the line where DOS is), then select the option [New] by pressing your right arrow key until [New] is highlighted. Hit CR. Then specify how much space you want for your new partition. When you are asked whether you want to put that partition at the beginning (meaning, at the beginning of the existing unpartitioned space), just say yes. The revised partition table will then be presented to you. It should show DOS in the same place it was. Do the same thing for 1 more partition. Then change the type of that partition to a Linux swap by using the right arrow key again to highlight the word [Type], then answering the prompt by giving the number 82, which is the value for a linux swap partition. Again, you'll see the revised partition table. Still, nothing has happened to your disk. Only if and when you use the right arrow key to highlight the [Write] button, and then hit the [ENTER] key, will you have written your new partition table to disk. One thing you might do before starting (and this is a good idea anyway) is to keep a record of your existing disk partition. You can do this with this command: cfdisk /dev/hda -P t > part_hda.tbl or, if you want to keep a record of the partition table using the sector format, use: cfdisk /dev/hda -P s > part_hda.sec (I'm assuming the disk you're working on is the master on your primary IDE controller. If not, adjust hda to the appropriate value.) HTH, Susan Kleinmann
