is there a way to make primary partitions into non-primary partitions?
thanks!
wmeler
On 8/2/06, Felix Miata
On 06/08/02 18:10 (GMT-0400) wmeler apparently typed:
i have suse 10.0 installed, and i want things to stay that way. at the same time, i want to install windows xp. (please don't get into the "why do you need windows?" stuff. don't worry, i'm loyal to linux, but i need it--or rather my girlfriend does--from time to time. thanks!)
basically, i get to the point in the windows installation where it shows me the partitions that are already installed. i have 3 partitions of roughly 4.8 Gigs each. (i think 2 are for linux, and one is a swap partition.) regardless, it won't allow me to even try to install windows on those partitions as windows installation basically claims it doesn't recognize those partitions, though it calls them the C, F, and G drives.
that's fine with me, because i still have one more available partition with about 24 Gigs, which windows calls "unknown." i specifically didn't use the whole drive when originally installing linux. windows installation claims it needs about 1.2 Gigs, but when i try to install on that drive, windows says it cannot create any more partitions.
so, i am pretty much confused as to how to solve this. ideally,here's what i want from most important to least important: 1) i won't have to blast any of the linux partitions. 2) i will be able to install windows and have a way to choose at boot time between windows and linux. 3) i will be able to install windows in as small a partition as possible (my 2.5 gigs or something), and then will be able to allocate the rest of the 24 gigs to a shared windows/linux partition (if such a thing exists?). alternatively, i will be able to re-allocate that remaining 21.5 gigs back to being usable by linux. (i really don't need a lot of space for windows, though i appreciate any tips on any swap space i should allocate for windows.)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/os2user/message/28611 and URL in my .sig should be instructive. Without knowing the details about your existing partitions, I can only suspect an issue of primary count limitation as your problem.
There can only be 4 primaries, so one of them must explicitly be an extended in order for more than 4 total including logicals to exist. XP must start from a "visible" primary, though it can be as small as 40MB, much like using a separate /boot partition for Linux.
XP has no problem installing to existing partitions, but only if they are of a correct type, either 01h (FAT12), 04h (FAT16), 06h (FAT16B), 07h (NTFS), 0Bh (FAT32 small), or 0Ch (FAT32 large). I usually set a small primary FAT as the "C:" boot partition, and put its installation partition up above wherever I have Linux installed. FAT12/16 are suitable only for data or C: boot partitions, not for actually installing the XP OS. XP likes 07h best, but rather than learning the idiosyncratic doze file access system for the little I use doze, I use FAT32.
The only suitably safe type for sharing between doze and Linux is FAT32, which is either type 0Bh or 0Ch depending on size and location on disk.
2.5G is a bit small for XP. 3G should be acceptable if you don't install a lot of hungry apps, otherwise go for 7G or more. -- "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Galatians 6:9 NIV
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
Felix Miata *** http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/partitioningindex.html
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-- Cheers, wmeler