[lug] Linux FileServer Problems

[Michael Deck]

I had myself this WD Caviar 1.2GB drive that had Windows on it, not 
bootable. And I had myself a Micron MME200 machine with 2 Windows HDD's, 
both full of data I don't want to have to restore from tape. So I said to 
myself, let's turn this baby into a Linux File Server. That'll give me the 
ability to run Postgres on it, and some other good things.

First I disconnected the IDE cable for the 2 Windows HDD's and connected up 
the Caviar as the only IDE HDD. Then I fired it up with the KRUD CD in the 
drive. With no OS on the Caviar, it booted RedHat install. Great, I 
thought, just run the install. I repartitioned the HDD as follows

800MB Linux native for /
90MB MSDos for /dos
128MB Linux swap
rest for /home

And let 'er rip. After a couple of failed attempts (not enough space, etc.) 
I got to the step where it wants to install the boot loader. ERRRK! Can't 
do it. I can boot off a linux floppy and it'll fire up everything nicely, 
but it says "no operating system found" when I try to boot from HDD. I've 
tried /sbin/lilo and it doesn't seem to work. Linux fdisk complains about 
some sector alignment problems, but everything in Linux seems to be OK. If 
I boot Win95 off of floppy, its fdisk says it can't even read the drive. 
And Win95's fdisk /MBR says it can't (or won't) rewrite the boot sector. 
Any thoughts on what to do to make this thing bootable?

Ok, that's problem cluster #1.

Now, I want to have SAMBA share the 2 Windows HDD's with 5 total 
partitions, but without reformatting or any of that jive. So I plug in the 
IDE cable and fire it up. I say

mkdir /mnt/cdrive
chmod 777 /mnt/cdrive
mount /dev/hdc1 /mnt/cdrive

but it's mounted read-only. I've tried a lot of mount options to see if I 
can make it rw, or even accessible to a group other than root, but it won't 
let me. So I've got SAMBA sharing these puppies read-only but not 
read-write. I'd like to put script in rc.local so that the shares are 
mounted at boot time, read-write to everyone on the network. (It's 
firewalled). Suggestions?

TIA,
   Mike

Michael Deck
Cleanroom Software Engineering, Inc.