HD Install :: Partitioning nightmare

Well, my system has and 40GB hard drive with Win2K as the single and standard operating system (now corrupt). I would now like to remove it completely and put in DSL, so booted the system with DSL LiveCD and tried to follow the instructions given on the DSL Wiki, but when I come to cfdisk I see the following:
hda1 Boot Primary NTFS ^D 40007.77
PRI/Log Free space 8.23

and when I delete the hda1 partition and set new hda1 & hda2 partitions and reboot the system, then type in
sudo -s
mkswap /dev/hda1
swapon /dev/hda1

it just gives me an error

and when I go back to cfdisk, I see the same old:
hda1 Boot Primary NTFS ^D 40007.77
PRI/Log Free space 8.23

how this can after deleting it and where the hda1 & hda2 partitions I set up went, is anybody's guess

any ideal what I should do?

Regards

Make sure you
1. "write" your changes to the disk before exiting cfdisk
2. reboot after your changes after exiting cfdisk

Quote (bizres @ Mar. 09 2007,16:05)

and when I delete the hda1 partition and set new hda1 & hda2 partitions and reboot the system, then type in
sudo -s
mkswap /dev/hda1
swapon /dev/hda1

how this can after deleting it and where the hda1 & hda2 partitions I set up went, is anybody's guess

Make sure you're using the write command like hats said. Don't forget to toggle hda2 bootable if that's where you want to install Linux and to set hda1 (if that's your swap) to filesystem 82.

This has no bearing on writing your partitions in cfdisk but there's no need to enter a user password to get into a root shell. I know it's picking nits because it accomplishes the same result, but sudo su is a little easier if you want root (no need to enter user password like on -s -- good to know on live CDs if you don't know/have a password):
sudo su
[straight to root]
mkswap /dev/hda1
swapon /dev/hda1

Thank you.

DSL Successfully installed to my hard drive and now my system boots up ok with DSL.

However, when booting from the LiveCD, DSL could detect my network card and allowed me to configure the IP address, etc. Now when I go to DSL Panel then Netcard config, all what it tells me is, "No supported network cards found".
I went to SYSTEM STATS and clicked on the NET tab at the bottom and it tells me:
FULLNAME="VIA Technologies|VT82C100A [Rhine 10/100]"
DRIVER="via-rhine"
# Insert nameservers here
# nameserver 127.0.0.1
nameserver 206.13.28.12
lo
Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.01 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 METRIC:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collissions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0B)

When I click on the "modules" tab at the bottom of the "SYSTEM STATS" it has no mention of the network card

When I click on the "pci" tab at the bottom of the "SYSTEM STATS" it says (among other things,):
0000:00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rcv74)

When I click on the "hardware" tab at the bottom of the "SYSTEM STATS" it says (among other things,):
NETCARD_FULLNAME="VIA Technologies|VT82C100A [Rhine 10/100]
NETCARD_DRIVER="via-rhine"

Another thing I have noticed after installing DSL onto the hard drive is in the My DSL Extension Tool:
Apps, Muktimedia, Themes
Games, Net, UCI
VNC, GEK2, System
WM_Apps, Testing, Load Local

When I now click on any of the above options, all I get is a blank window coming up, whereas when booting from the LiveCD, clicking on any of these options use to bring up a window with further options.

Pls advise.

Regards.

Next Page...
original here.