[lug] SuSE 7.2 Error: "Unsupported partition table"

[D. Stimits]

I would have to wonder if you are running into a problem where the BIOS
information is being used during only part of the install, and doing
something different in the other parts of the install (thus working
correctly in only one part). BIOS would only be used during initial
booting, then ignored once a boot is complete, so a rescue or other disk
might see it fine (they are booted already when looking), while initial
boot directly off of the drive would not (it would still be using BIOS
data at that point). You might wish to check your BIOS for settings like
LBA mode if it is a large disk.

D. Stimits, stimits at idcomm.com

BOF wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I have been trying to install SuSE 7.2 Pro on the second hard drive of a
> system that I have had at least 175 of the 178 known Linux distributions
> on. (Well, not that many, but certainly RH, Slack, Debian, among others).
> 
> This 3.2 GB drive currently has Red Hat 7.2 on it, and was formatted as
> 
>     /dev/hdb1    swap      384 MB
>     /dev/hdb2    ext2        rest of drive
> 
> When I attempt to install SuSE, it does sees the existing partitions
> during boot up, but then does not see them when it comes time to
> partition the drive. I issued instructions to set it up as above, and
> when it tries to begin installing software, the process fails with the
> error message:
> 
>     "The disk has an unsupported partition table. Please repartition
> disk /dev/hdb."
> 
> I do not understand why it does not see the existing partitions, nor do
> I know how to force it to see them. I've tried multiple ideas, including
> using Tom's root/boot disk to run fdisk to wipe the partition table and
> reset the partitions, but nothing that I do seems to work. Out of
> desperation, I just did a fresh Red Hat installation, using Disk Druid
> to establish the partitions. As soon as I got it to boot, I retried the
> SuSE installation, and got the error message.
> 
> Previous experience with this drive is that, once the partitions are
> set, they are seen by any other Linux distribution when I install it,
> and so I don't change them, other than to format them during
> installation to wipe the old installation. This works for everything I
> have tried except SuSE 7.2.
> 
> Anyone have any ideas how to fix or overcome this?
> 
> BOF
> 
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