HD Install :: CFdisk is going off the screen

I'm trying to run cfdisk to format the drive and do partitions. problem is my laptop's resolution is fixed at 800x600 and when i boot off the cd into text mode the text is at the very bottom, and when i open cfdisk, it goes off the bottom so i can't see any prompts. I can't seem to figure out how to start ind both text mode and 800x600. some special way of grouping the commands together? any help would be appreciated.

also, i'm seeing that people are setting up different partitions for system, swap, and other stuff. can I just use one for all of those, or do i need multiples?

I've got plenty of other problems, but I'll just start with this.

You could write 'dsl vga=normal' at the "boot:"-prompt. There may also be some frame buffer setting you can use.

I think it's alt-Shift-F2 to get the menu to move the window then you can move the window that's in focus no matter where the mouse is placed on the screen.

well entering "fb800x600" lets me boot into the full GUI and everything, but i can't get cfdisk to work there (says "fatal error can't open". guessing that mounting/unmounting has something to do with that but it says it either way). I can get cfdisk working if I boot saying "dsl 2" but then i can't see the bottom or the right side of it to follow the instructions. I guess I'm looking for a way to combine dsl2 and fb800x600, but I can't figure out the syntax of it.

You should be able to do cfdisk from any terminal as root. Enter sudo su cfdisk and then the path to the partition you want to cfdisk. I do not believe you will be permitted to cfdisk the same partition you booted from. You do not need to be in X to use cfdisk. Enter bash at the prompt to get into a bash terminal then enter sudo su cfdisk /dev/hdxyz

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