Help with Linux Partitions

Hello,

I am new to this forum and I am having problems with making linux partitions.
I open up the cfdisk utility and it says that it has a fatal error and it cannot open my hard disk. I have done this in the past and it was fine. Now it won't let me. Also, I am running DSL (Damn small linux) on a live cd and I am trying to install it as my sole OS.

if you don't care about the HD contents, then you can try wiping out any existing partition table entries. Do something like "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdX bs=1024 count=1024" where hdX is your hard drive device. This will write zeroes (1MB worth) to the beginning of the drive and should clear up any confusion the partitioner may have.

Don't know about DSL, but there are two other partitioning tools for Linux: fdisk and parted.

Thanks! I'll check it out. I'll post again if it doesn't work out.