Help! Getting error in Parted Magic!

English Install/Boot/Login
1

I set parted magic to take the entire HDD and partition it as:

4GB Swap
25GB Primary Ext4
25GB Primary Ext4
411GB Extended Partition (this is all remaining space)

  • (on extended partition) -
    — 205.5GB Logical Ext4
    — 205.5GB Logical Ext4

I then hit Apply and it gets through the first 4 steps of deleting existing partitions, but on step 4 of creating the first 25GB partition, it says:


Create empty partition
    path: /dev/sda2

Set partition type on /dev/sda2
    new partition type ext4

Create new ext4 file system
    mkfs.ext4 -j -O extent -L "" /dev/sda2
        mke2fs 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
        Could not stat /dev/sda2 --- no such file or directory
    The device apparently does not exist: did you specify it correctly?

What is wrong? What do I do?

2

Too many steps maybe.

  • Use fdisk to delete all partitions but the first one (it’s faster).
  • Run partprobe to reload the partition table.
  • Use gparted to create the first 25GB partition and apply.
  • If it doesn’t work, use parted, refresh with partprobe and see if you can see the partition with fdisk. If you can see it start gparted, etc .
3

Did you start by deleting all your existing partitions and applying

Then making the layout you want?

4

Yes. And even after this error, I tried again and just deleted all partitions. Hit apply. Then added only swap and first 25GB partition. Hit apply. Still got error.
So then I again deleted everything, hit apply. Then tried to add just swap and get the error! Help! Is my HDD bricked?

5

Are you using the version of Parted Magic I serve here?
http://www.su2root.ukfsn.org/files/programs_zips/pmagic-4.5.iso

Can you delete all partitions and leave 500GB unpartitioned space?

What about the SUSE media. Can it make the partitions?

6

The version I downloaded was from their site and is: pmagic_2011_11_24_i686.iso

Yes, this is the one thing it says it is able to do. (Although, it says it’s actually only 465GB that’s there)

I don’t know, I’ve only tried Parted Magic so far.

7

That’s normal. Manufacturer count in 1000000000 bytes. Gigabyte - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

8

In Parted Magic, on the 500 GB unallocated space
You may need to go to Device > Create Partition Table

The create the partitions

9

Is that done in the gparted app?

10

Yes
Look at the menu tabs along the top
Device > create Partition Table
It will warn about erasing all data. It’s OK

11

If you want to try something new - not sure you want - wipe out the first sector and install Fedora 16. I read in the CT’ (german magazine) the other day that if you install Fedora 16 on a blank hard disk (which doesn’t have a MBR), it will create a GPT partition, even on a non EFI system. Is that not interesting? Then you can use these partitions for openSUSE but I don’t think you can boot with Legacy Grub. :frowning:

Well, it doesn’t solve your problem, but I wanted to mention this info.
If you have doubt about your HD, run a disk surface check from PartedMagic. It should take about 2 hours to complete.

12

OK, just to be sure I do this all properly:

  1. Device -> Create Partition Table (Apply that)
  2. THEN, I start defining/creating the partitions (do I do these all at once or one at a time?)
13

Yes
.

14

Help! Is my HDD bricked?

Just thought I would say.
This seems quite unlikely. Can we rightly assume you tested it with the Windows OS that was pre-installed?

15

Yes, I started that up, it worked perfectly.

ARGH! That didn’t help!

I did exactly what you said and it created the partition table, but now it fails when trying to create the Linux Swap (with the same error)! What can I do?

16

First thing is: Don’t panic

Partly because I have to sleep.
Perhaps @please_try_again can assist in my absence ?

17

I finally got it to work. Here’s how (after MANY, MANY attempts of doing this a million ways):

  1. Restart Parted Magic
  2. Create/Apply 25GB Primary Ext4, aligned to Cylinder (aligning to MiB throws an error EVERY time)
  3. Restart Parted Magic (if I don’t it throws an error)
  4. Create/Apply 25GB Primary Ext4, aligned to Cylinder
  5. Restart Parted Magic
  6. Create/Apply 411GB Extended Partition, aligned to Cylinder
  7. Restart Parted Magic (if I don’t it throws an error when I try to make a logical partition)
  8. Create/Apply 205.5GB Primary Ext4, aligned to Cylinder
  9. Restart Parted Magic (if I don’t it throws an error)
  10. Create/Apply 205.5GB Primary Ext4, aligned to Cylinder

Apparently both restarting after every change AND aligning to cylinder are what allows it to work.** Why?**

Now for the real test - I’m going to try to install openSUSE 12.1. Gulp.

18

Very strange
Good luck. I’ll hope to see something on the other side of my sleeping.

19

Thanks now I’m getting an issue at the install step of “disk”. It says it needs a partition at the beginning which is EFI Boot and of type FAT and mounted at /boot/efi. I am unable to create this myself in the installation step, so I thought I’d try to alter the installation partitioning they suggest. But I am unable to create an extended partition in the openSUSE installer! Any idea how to do this? Otherwise, I’m stuck.

20

Hmmm have you tried turn off EFI in the BIOS.