Hi,
I'm trying to install Suse 10.2 dual boot, windows is already installed. I just suffered a catastrophic power surge which killed the MB, the CPU and the largest HD but spared the smaller HD. This is the error I get when installing:
"setting type of partition /dev/hdb6 failed. Sys.Err. code 1012."
Because I've spent days on this system trying to salvage anything, I just told the repair guy to go ahead and install Windows for me after replacing the MB and CPU, removing the fried HD and swapping the smaller disk to be primary.
I believe now that that move was a mistake. After several suse install failures, I spent some time examining the windows xp side and noted that the disk was formatted ntfs!
I recall that I read some time ago that Linux has problems with ntfs. Would this explain my problem?
If so, how can I reformat the disk and re-install my copy of XP with vfat?
Or, is there a less radical solution?
Matthew

Modern Linux distros can at least read NTFS OK (I assume you mean NTFS, I'm not aware of an "htfs"). However, to install Linux you're going to need to shrink the NTFS partition to have free space to install Linux. I am not sure if the SuSE installer can do this, but you can get the GPARTED LiveCD -- it can resize NTFS partitions.

Maybe "fdisk -l" is reporting HPFS ???.
This is probably just a NTFS partition that has been marked hidden. I think Partition Magic used to do things like that after resizing.
I'd just go into fdisk and change the type from x'17' to x'7'. As btmiller said, NTFS is no problem for Linux these days - I certainly wouldn't entertain thoughts of using FAT for the 'doze install partition.

As for the what the Suse installer is doing - who knows. I found it a piece of crap, and gave up trying to install it.

I found an old copy of Partition Magic and thought I would make it easy for the Suse Installer by creating an ext2 partition.
It made no difference. The installer stopped at the same spot, namely the point where it proposes and looks at the partition rearrangement. Once I agree to the proposal, I get the error: "Failure occurred while setting type of partition /dev/hdb5 to 82. I have no idea what 82 means but according to my partition magic, the following is set up:

Partition Type SizeMB UsedMB Un-usedMB Status Prim/Log
------------------------------------------------------------------
C: NTFS 52548 4486 48056 Active Primary
(*) unallocated 1255 0 0 none Primary
(*) Extended 98821 2055 96766 None Primary
LocalDisk Linux Ext2 2055 2055 0 None Logical
(*) unallocated 96766 0 0 None Logical
------------------------------------------------------------------

PM doesn't seem to support anything that resembles "Type 17 or 7". It could be that there is a bug in the installer. I wouldn't know that because I updated rather than "new install" from Suse 10.1, hence it wasn't necessary for the installer to change the partitions.
I think I'd rather have dental cavity drilled.
Thanks for the input so far, any further suggestions at this point?
Matthew

NTFS is type x'7' - so that's nothing to worry about.
Type x'82' is Linux swap - I have no idea why that can't be created by the installer.

Thanks for the input. At least I have a direction to aim my search at. Would I be breaking protocol by posting a question in the Suse area posing just this question: "Any problems/Solutions noted by Suse 10.2 creating a Linux Swap partition at new installation"?
Matthew

Can't see why - you've got a problem, check any problem tracking they have, then ask away.

Thanks All,
By identifying the swap partition as 82, you permitted me to frame the problem exactly and thereby solve it.
After entering "suse 10.2 installer failure to set a linux swap partition" into Google, it returned more than 10 pages full of similar problems. Since my connection is so unbearably slow, I made a trip to a nearby hotel with an unprotected WiFi and mooched a connection with my laptop and downloaded about 4 hours worth of reading.
At the end of all this, I did use Partition Magic on the windows side to partition the HD. First I removed all partitions except the Windows NTFS. Then I created one large Extended Primary partition. On this I created a Logical, Ext3,Partition, leaving a bit more than 1MB on the remaining unallocated space. Here I created a linux swap partition, checked it all over for mistakes and then quit.
On my suse install, I had to go to expert partitioning to make sure that the installer didn't revert to its old tricks and try to create a swap file that it didn't know how to. The installation worked faultlessly at this point.
From my reading, my guess is that there is a simple fault in the installer that tries to install a swap file but gets the 'type' wrong. Could even be a typo!
Many thanks to all for your help.
Matthew