SuSE Linux Installation on COMPAQ Servers Containing a Maintenance Partition
Support knowledgebase (tsieden_cpq-maint-partition)
Applies to
SuSE Linux: Versions since 7.2
SuSE Linux
Situation:
You want to install SuSE Linux/SuSE Linux Enterprise Server/SuSE Linux eMail Server on a
COMPAQ server (e.g. ProLiant ML370) already containing a COMPAQ maintenance partition.
Background:
COMPAQ servers (if installed through the Quickstart CD delivered along with the server)
have a so-called maintenance partition that contains several service and diagnostic programs which
can be started during the boot process by pressing <F10>. This partition has a special
Master-Boot-Record on the first sector of the hard disk, so that the partition
can be addressed from the server BIOS. The maintenance partition has a valid FAT file system. However,
it is not detected as C: drive by the (DOS-based) service programs located there, which in turn
prevents them from writing their output to a file. The following lines describe how to install SuSE
Linux without deleting this MBR and how the programs can still be "persuaded" to work properly.
ATTENTION: This procedure will possibly NOT work in COMPAQ servers where, in addition to SuSE Linux,
another operating system is already available on a FAT partition. If you try to apply the procedure described in this
article to one of these machines, it could result in the drive letters not being accessible (or being
accessible in the wrong order) later on, thus making system start impossible!
Procedure:
First of all install SuSE Linux as described on the manual. YaST2 will automatically detect that another
operating system is already available on the hard disk. During the installation, in the dialog box
System Boot Configuration, YaST2 will suggest you to install the bootloader on a floppy disk.
Select custom SILO installation and activate the menu item Write LILO to a different partition.
Enter the root partition defined during the partitioning of the hard disk (/dev/sda2 in the example) in
this field and activate the option Activate LILO partition.
- Once the installation has been completed, log in as root user and start the program fdisk -l.
The output will be similar to:
Disk /dev/sda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 2213 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 6 71 530145 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda2 * 72 594 4200997+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 1 5 40131 12 Compaq diagnostics
/dev/sda4 595 2213 13004617+ 83 Linux
Partition table entries are not in disk order
Some additional output will be displayed if the system contains more than one hard disk. However, only the first
hard disk (usually /dev/sda in SCSI systems and /dev/hda in IDE systems) is relevant to our further proceedings.
- Now enter sfdisk --id /dev/sda 3 6 (3 stands for the partition that is to be changed and
6 for the new partition type). By doing this, you will change the partition type of the Compaq diagnostics partition
to FAT16. You can check if this has worked by entering fdisk -l. The output will be similar to this:
Disk /dev/sda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 2213 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 6 71 530145 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda2 * 72 594 4200997+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 1 5 40131 6 FAT16
/dev/sda4 595 2213 13004617+ 83 Linux
Partition table entries are not in disk order
This step ensures that the COMPAQ service programs detect the partition as C: drive and that their output can be
written there. However, the partition can be no longer started by pressing <F10> during the boot
process. This can be avoided by adding a boot entry in the file /etc/lilo.conf.
- In order to do this, open the file /etc/lilo.conf with an editor of your choice and append the following lines:
other = /dev/sda3
label = COMPAQ
loader = /boot/chain.b
Save the changes, execute lilo -v, and the new boot entry will be already active. After restarting the system, it
can be selected at SuSE Linux start menu, under the entry COMPAQ. After that, the maintenance partition will also
boot, thus enabling you to fully use the programs located in it.
Keywords: COMPAQ, MAINTENANCEPARTITION, INSTALLATION, LILO
SDB-tsieden_cpq-maint-partition, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany
- Version: 11. Mär 2002
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 15. Mai 2002 by ip (sdb_gen 1.40.0)