I am attempting to install Red Hat Linux to replace an existing Linux Mandrake installation. NT4 is also installed on the same PC. I cannot understand how to make the Disk Druid tool do what I want.

The initial screen shows the following:

Partitions
==========

Mount Point Device Requested Actual Type
----------- ------ --------- ------ ----------------
<not set> hda1 2012M 2012M DOS 16-bit >=32M
<not set> hdb1 10001M 10001M OS/2 HPFS
<not set> hdb5 494M 494M Linux native
<Swap> hdb6 243M 243M Linux swap
<not set> hdb7 2996M 2996M Linux native
<not set> hdb8 15578M 15578M Linux native

Drive Summary
=============

Drive Geom [C/H/S] Total(M) Free(M) Used(M) Used(%)
---------- ------------- -------- ------- ------- -------
hda [1023/ 64/63] 2014M 2M 2012M 99%
hdb [3737/255/63] 29313M 0M 29313M 100%

The first two partitions hda1 & hdb1 belong to NT4 and I want to preserve these. I want to overwrite the remaining Mandrake partitions with new partitions suitable for Red Hat. It lets me delete partitions but when I attempt to add a new one I cannot persuade it to allocate it on hdb.

The Add dialog has a list of Allowable Drives containing hda and hdb - both highlit in blue on entry to the dialog. I can click on one or the other to unhighlight it, but not both. Seems reasonable. However, whichever permutation I try gives the same result, i.e. if the requested size is 1 Meg it creates the partition called hda4; if the requested size is greater than 1M I get a 'partition too big' error. How do I tell it to create the partition on hdb?

I'm prepared to believe I'm being particularly dense - it wouldn't be the first time.

You'll need to create logical (extended) partitions as you are exceeding the four partition limit.

OK. I'm not too sure about this, but first of all your info indicates that you only have free space on hda. It says you have 2MB free and you have no space available on hdb. When you try to create a new partition, the only place it can do so is on the hda drive.

When you deleted the linux partitions on hdb, did you write out the new partition table info to the hard drive? I believe that is what you have to do before you can repartition the drive. Now, I could be wrong about all this.

If I were you, when I load RedHat, go to Custom installation
and choose Disk Druid to manually partition your HD. Once there, delete all the partitions you don't want and start from scratch.
If you want, you can look at what I did. My case is a little bit different, cause I was dual booting on the same HD, but I don't think it will be that different. My thread is "Am dualbooting RH7.0 & Win2K. Need Help!!!" in the Installation forum.

Hope that helps.

I liked the sound of the 'delete all the partitions you don't want and start from scratch' approach. How? I click the delete button on the unwanted partitions, say 'Yes' at the 'Are you sure' prompt. What next? The only button in the whole dialog that looks as if it might lead anywhere is 'Next' - but it's grayed out.

Help - what am I doing wrong?

HHH - I'm reading your thread - looks interesting

Sorry for getting back to you so late...

After you delete your unwanted partitions, are they still in the top window? ie. the one which has "existing partitions" wriiten on top of it.

If they are not, then good. If they are, can't help (sorry!)

Going on, once you've done that to all your unwanted partitons, start adding the ones you want. One thing is, you might not want to delete is your NT4 partiton, since you want to keep it (if I undersatnd correctly.)

I think the ones you want are the swap, /boot, and /(root). You can add in /usr and /temp if you want. I did. Check my thread for my part.

I hope this helps!

HHH