I was trying to install dual boot, slackware with Windows XP, on my Dell
laptop. I put the WinXP installation disk in and created a smaller
partition for Windows and installed XP on that NTFS partition. I then put
the first slackware installation disk in and ran cfdisk (it's easier than
fdisk). cfdisk gave me the error message that I couldn't write to that
drive because it's read only. I tried a bunch of different kernels but got
the same message. So I tried Fedora Core. That installed fine on the
unformatted part of the disk, but I noticed that it called the hard drive
hdc instead of hda. I then tried the slackware installation disk again and
ran cfdisk /dev/hdc, and there it was. But I've only got one hard drive.
So what's going on?

Like I said, it's an idiot question...