[ltp] RH 9.0 + WinXP on T40

Tomas Horsky linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
Mon, 16 Feb 2004 16:09:18 +0100


Greg Meyer wrote:
> On Monday 16 February 2004 02:50 am, Ramkumar Rengaswamy wrote:
> 
>>I am using qtparted provided by Koppix to partition my hard-drive. It does
>>not seem to show the HPA at the end of the disk. I dont know if it
>>over-writes the HPA.
> 
> 
> The HPA is hidden by the BIOS unless you set it to be visible.  This way you 
> cannot hurt it.  If you want to reclaim the space, you may want to get the 
> recovery disks first, then set the BIOS to make the HPA visible.  Once it is 
> visible, you should be able to create a partition on it. 
I was using fdisk, and when it asked for an end cylinder of newly created 
partition, it offered number 5168 (or something like that). Original windows 
partition ended on 4773. That was while it was protected by BIOS (I did not 
change that setting). Will it overwrite it if I say 5168? I did not try...

Is it safe to overwrite HPA (without recovery disk)? I do not want windows, I 
wiped it away immediately, but did not want to break something so I left HPA 
untouched. What else is located there except recovery for windows?

> 
> When I tried to install Fedora Core 1 on the HPA, the disk druid could not 
> make a partition on it, I would get an error.  I ended up using the diskdrake 
> tool from the mandrake 9.2 installer to create the partition and then Fedora 
> went in without a hitch.