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. 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)