help me help a linux convert
All, I have a manager at work who has expressed a desire to install 'Linux' on his home desktop pc. He has Windows XP installed on his 'D:' drive and his 'C:' drive is bare. He originally tried RH, then Mandrake, but both refused to recognise i.e. stalled at the partition stage, I have offered him my copy of 8.1 which he duly accepted but has still run into a problem...... In esssence, Yast is insisting on shrinking his D: (XP) which, I suppose he is understandably reluctant to do so, and is not letting him install on the 'C:' drive. My initial thought would be to format the c: as a FAT partition and see what happens next, but I wanted to see if other people have any better ideas. It's going to be awkward as any replies, will take a day or so to reach him (at work) so please bear with me, he is a good guy ! In short c:\ blank d:\ XP (must be preserved) Yast wont install on the vacant C:\ although XP knows its there... Thanks Pete
On Tuesday 08 April 2003 14:51 pm, pete atkinson wrote:
All,
I have a manager at work who has expressed a desire to install 'Linux' on his home desktop pc.
He has Windows XP installed on his 'D:' drive and his 'C:' drive is bare.
He originally tried RH, then Mandrake, but both refused to recognise i.e. stalled at the partition stage, I have offered him my copy of 8.1 which he duly accepted but has still run into a problem......
In esssence, Yast is insisting on shrinking his D: (XP) which, I suppose he is understandably reluctant to do so, and is not letting him install on the 'C:' drive.
My initial thought would be to format the c: as a FAT partition and see what happens next, but I wanted to see if other people have any better ideas. It's going to be awkward as any replies, will take a day or so to reach him (at work) so please bear with me, he is a good guy !
In short
c:\ blank d:\ XP (must be preserved) Yast wont install on the vacant C:\ although XP knows its there...
You'll get a lot of replies different than this one but I would suggest using a good Partition'er program (Partition Magic or Acronis) to clear off the C: drive partitions and then let SuSE go at it. SuSE always wants to make new partitions if let on its own and it may look like there is no space on the C: drive. P.S. I *always* use a partition program to set up for an SuSE install and then tell SuSE which partitions to use. Just my $.02
Thanks
Pete
-- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Bruce S. Marshall bmarsh@bmarsh.com Bellaire, MI 04/08/03 14:14 + +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "Cover me. I'm changing lanes."
On Tuesday 08 April 2003 11:15 am, Bruce Marshall wrote:
On Tuesday 08 April 2003 14:51 pm, pete atkinson wrote: <snip>
In esssence, Yast is insisting on shrinking his D: (XP) which, I suppose he is understandably reluctant to do so, and is not letting him install on the 'C:' drive.
My initial thought would be to format the c: as a FAT partition and see what happens next, but I wanted to see if other people have any better ideas. It's going to be awkward as any replies, will take a day or so to reach him (at work) so please bear with me, he is a good guy !
In short
c:\ blank d:\ XP (must be preserved) Yast wont install on the vacant C:\ although XP knows its there...
You'll get a lot of replies different than this one but I would suggest using a good Partition'er program (Partition Magic or Acronis) to clear off the C: drive partitions and then let SuSE go at it. SuSE always wants to make new partitions if let on its own and it may look like there is no space on the C: drive.
P.S. I *always* use a partition program to set up for an SuSE install and then tell SuSE which partitions to use. Just my $.02
Thanks
Pete
I, too, use Partition Magic for such things. It isn't free but it seems to be very safe, especially when linux is not already on the system someplace. -- Tony Alfrey tonyalfrey@earthlink.net
Did you try expert partitioning? It should show the contents of C, which may have a file system of some kind registered. On Tuesday 08 April 2003 14:51, pete atkinson wrote:
All,
I have a manager at work who has expressed a desire to install 'Linux' on his home desktop pc.
He has Windows XP installed on his 'D:' drive and his 'C:' drive is bare.
He originally tried RH, then Mandrake, but both refused to recognise i.e. stalled at the partition stage, I have offered him my copy of 8.1 which he duly accepted but has still run into a problem......
In esssence, Yast is insisting on shrinking his D: (XP) which, I suppose he is understandably reluctant to do so, and is not letting him install on the 'C:' drive.
My initial thought would be to format the c: as a FAT partition and see what happens next, but I wanted to see if other people have any better ideas. It's going to be awkward as any replies, will take a day or so to reach him (at work) so please bear with me, he is a good guy !
In short
c:\ blank d:\ XP (must be preserved) Yast wont install on the vacant C:\ although XP knows its there...
Thanks
Pete
All,
I have a manager at work who has expressed a desire to install 'Linux' on his home desktop pc.
He has Windows XP installed on his 'D:' drive and his 'C:' drive is bare. its probably easier at this stage to reply to my own post, because the balance has shifted somewhat when all the good suggestions were
On Tue, 2003-04-08 at 18:51, pete atkinson wrote: proposed. What we know as hda1 (his c:) used to be win98 and hda2 (d:\) is XP. hdb1-hdb5 are data drives e:\ thro to i:\ when the install was running through its routine, all partition space on both drives was full so it was asking to shtink one of the two partitions on hda He is reluctant to reformat the c: (hda1) as it will shift all his drive letters down by a degree.. (will it ?). So he has agreed to re-arrange datawise his e-i: drives freeing a good 5gb (which I have suggested he uses fdisk to 'delete' He will then see if SuSE install will then identify the free space at the end of hdbx to install on. So... apologies if I have led you all up the proverbial garden path, but I was working on the information to hand.... I will report back as to the success of this plan... rgds Pete
On Thursday 10 April 2003 7:59 pm, pete atkinson wrote:
On Tue, 2003-04-08 at 18:51, pete atkinson wrote:
I have a manager at work who has expressed a desire to install 'Linux' on his home desktop pc.
He has Windows XP installed on his 'D:' drive and his 'C:' drive is bare.
What we know as hda1 (his c:) used to be win98 and hda2 (d:\) is XP. hdb1-hdb5 are data drives e:\ thro to i:\
when the install was running through its routine, all partition space on both drives was full so it was asking to shtink one of the two partitions on hda
He is reluctant to reformat the c: (hda1) as it will shift all his drive letters down by a degree.. (will it ?).
Forgive me I have no direct experience of XP, but I will spout on believing it boots the same as NT. If this is the case, then don't reformat C:, because it contains stuff inherent to the XP boot process. The situation would be recoverable, but given the questions you are asking, you would be on a learning curve with your manager's machine and I can think of many machines I would rather be on a learning curve with..... If you do reformat C:, the drive letters will not shift, if XP recognises the partition type, but if you delete the partition, you will shift the letters What you can do with C: is remove the old win95 stuff but leave the XP boot essentials and shrink that partition. In the space remaining you can insert a new non dos and non windows partition, which will not be seen by XP and will not adjust the drive letters. However, you might have to edit boot.ini to point to the correct partition for XP.
So he has agreed to re-arrange datawise his e-i: drives freeing a good 5gb (which I have suggested he uses fdisk to 'delete' He will then see if SuSE install will then identify the free space at the end of hdbx to install on.
This looks reasonable, but you will need to check out whether you can use a DOS partition [C:] as a linux boot as well as an XP boot. Myself, I have never gone that way, so you are on your own. regards Vince Littler
My input to this matter would be to buy an extra harddrive an use ghost to copy/backup the old drive to it an then put the old drive in a safe place an work with the new drive. That way if you mess things up to bad you have not lost anything an can just drop in the old drive an up an running again. jack malone At 08:52 PM 4/10/2003 +0100, Vince Littler wrote:
On Thursday 10 April 2003 7:59 pm, pete atkinson wrote:
On Tue, 2003-04-08 at 18:51, pete atkinson wrote:
I have a manager at work who has expressed a desire to install 'Linux' on his home desktop pc.
He has Windows XP installed on his 'D:' drive and his 'C:' drive is bare.
What we know as hda1 (his c:) used to be win98 and hda2 (d:\) is XP. hdb1-hdb5 are data drives e:\ thro to i:\
when the install was running through its routine, all partition space on both drives was full so it was asking to shtink one of the two partitions on hda
He is reluctant to reformat the c: (hda1) as it will shift all his drive letters down by a degree.. (will it ?).
Forgive me I have no direct experience of XP, but I will spout on believing it boots the same as NT. If this is the case, then don't reformat C:, because it contains stuff inherent to the XP boot process. The situation would be recoverable, but given the questions you are asking, you would be on a learning curve with your manager's machine and I can think of many machines I would rather be on a learning curve with.....
If you do reformat C:, the drive letters will not shift, if XP recognises the partition type, but if you delete the partition, you will shift the letters
What you can do with C: is remove the old win95 stuff but leave the XP boot essentials and shrink that partition. In the space remaining you can insert a new non dos and non windows partition, which will not be seen by XP and will not adjust the drive letters. However, you might have to edit boot.ini to point to the correct partition for XP.
So he has agreed to re-arrange datawise his e-i: drives freeing a good 5gb (which I have suggested he uses fdisk to 'delete' He will then see if SuSE install will then identify the free space at the end of hdbx to install on.
This looks reasonable, but you will need to check out whether you can use a DOS partition [C:] as a linux boot as well as an XP boot. Myself, I have never gone that way, so you are on your own.
regards
Vince Littler
-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com
On Friday 11 April 2003 01:59, pete atkinson wrote:
On Tue, 2003-04-08 at 18:51, pete atkinson wrote:
All,
I have a manager at work who has expressed a desire to install 'Linux' on his home desktop pc.
He has Windows XP installed on his 'D:' drive and his 'C:' drive is bare.
its probably easier at this stage to reply to my own post, because the balance has shifted somewhat when all the good suggestions were proposed.
What we know as hda1 (his c:) used to be win98 and hda2 (d:\) is XP. hdb1-hdb5 are data drives e:\ thro to i:\
when the install was running through its routine, all partition space on both drives was full so it was asking to shtink one of the two partitions on hda
He is reluctant to reformat the c: (hda1) as it will shift all his drive letters down by a degree.. (will it ?). So he has agreed to re-arrange datawise his e-i: drives freeing a good 5gb (which I have suggested he uses fdisk to 'delete' He will then see if SuSE install will then identify the free space at the end of hdbx to install on.
I have done similar things, and yes, you can definetely use a free / empty partition on hdb for Linux, no matter which one (assuming you use not too old hardware). However when you install the standard partition proposal will not see it, it will probably propose to shrink Win98 or similar. Therefore you need to go into the "advanced" or "expert" partition setup, I forgot how the menu option was called, but it is the most "advanced" of the three. Make a plan before how you want to size the Linux partitions, as at this Menu option SuSE will not make any proposal about how to size "/swap" "/boot" and the root "/" etc. (I think I have seen discussions about this here recently, so check if you need more info.) You probably have used all your 4 main partitions already, so empty one of them, be it hdb 1 or hdb2 ..hdb 5, it does not matter, then create an extended partition there and fill it /swap, /boot, /, etc as logical partitions. HTH, Matt T.
On Tue, 2003-04-08 at 18:51, pete atkinson wrote:
All,
I have a manager at work who has expressed a desire to install 'Linux' on his home desktop pc.
ok, Manager, decided to get Partition Magic so that he could re-arrange
On Thu, 2003-04-10 at 18:59, pete atkinson wrote: the partitions on his secondary (hdb) drive, he did this and tried to install... still no joy (and I couldn't get an exact answer as to what) but then tried a safe linux install, this seemed to work until, on prompted after the first CD to reboot, everything stopped at grub..... again 'no error message available' He ended up going back to XP and recovering his boot sector, to make sure his XP was ok.. short of travelling a few hundred miles, I am not sure what to do next.. current theory is now that some sort of linux partition has been created, should he try again ? it might drop in nicely on an ordinary install (or then again) any ideas, I appreciate that I have given no blooming clue as to whats failing, but this is proving difficult for me as well ! rgds Pete
On Wednesday 16 April 2003 12:00 pm, pete atkinson wrote:
On Thu, 2003-04-10 at 18:59, pete atkinson wrote:
On Tue, 2003-04-08 at 18:51, pete atkinson wrote:
All,
I have a manager at work who has expressed a desire to install 'Linux' on his home desktop pc.
<snip>
He ended up going back to XP and recovering his boot sector, to make sure his XP was ok.. short of travelling a few hundred miles, I am not sure what to do next.. current theory is now that some sort of linux partition has been created, should he try again ?
Sounds like he wrote linux somewhere and sounds like XP is still OK? Sounds like a master boot record issue. Partition Magic is such an easy piece of software to use, at least he should see an ext2 partition with it. Did the linux install ask him to make a recovery boot disk? (just guessing here) -- Tony Alfrey tonyalfrey@earthlink.net "I'd Rather Be Sailing"
On Wednesday 16 April 2003 07:00 pm, pete atkinson wrote:
short of travelling a few hundred miles, I am not sure what to do next..
Hmm ~ If you got a new hard disk for him, you could partition it, make file systems, and 'clone' your own installation onto his new hard disk, by mounting his disk, cd to your own root " / " and doing like so :- tar clf - . | ( umask 0; cd /mnt; tar xvf - ) next, make him a new User Account, and delete your own account and delete your personal stuff. When your pal/boss get it, he has only gotta plug in the HardDisk, run "sax2" to get his Video up & workin' Chances are good it will all work ok . . . "No Sweat" -- best wishes ____________ sent on Linux ____________
I bought a PC with XP preinstalled, just for Linux. I initially used partition magic 7.0 (with patchs). PM 7.0 created the Linux 8.1 (Suse) ok. And it did wipe out my XP. It seems that PM LILO overrode PM Boot Manager. I had to do a tripple boot to get to XP. When I bought up XP and reenabled Boot Magic, Linux disappeared. I could only boot Linux by booting the Linux CD which would then boot my Linux Partition. Upgrading to PM 8.0 solved my problems. I reinstalled Suse, just because there wasn't anything important there at that time. So, Win/XP then PM 8.0 with Boot Magic then Suse 8.1 Everything is just fine. Tom Duerbusch THD Consulting pete atkinson wrote:
On Thu, 2003-04-10 at 18:59, pete atkinson wrote:
On Tue, 2003-04-08 at 18:51, pete atkinson wrote:
All,
I have a manager at work who has expressed a desire to install 'Linux' on his home desktop pc.
ok, Manager, decided to get Partition Magic so that he could re-arrange the partitions on his secondary (hdb) drive, he did this and tried to install... still no joy (and I couldn't get an exact answer as to what) but then tried a safe linux install, this seemed to work until, on prompted after the first CD to reboot, everything stopped at grub..... again 'no error message available' He ended up going back to XP and recovering his boot sector, to make sure his XP was ok.. short of travelling a few hundred miles, I am not sure what to do next.. current theory is now that some sort of linux partition has been created, should he try again ? it might drop in nicely on an ordinary install (or then again) any ideas, I appreciate that I have given no blooming clue as to whats failing, but this is proving difficult for me as well !
rgds
Pete
Tom Duerbusch
So, Win/XP then PM 8.0 with Boot Magic then Suse 8.1
Not quite :) Grub can only be installed in the MBR, so if you want to use GRUB, it needs entries to load other operating systems. If you want to use another boot loader, there are two things you have to do: 1) Use LILO as boot loader for linux and 2) Install LILO in that partition that holds the kernel, i.e. the partition /boot resides on. If that partition is an extended partition, LILO needs to be installed in the boot sector of the extended partition. Philipp -- Philipp Thomas work: pthomas@suse.de Development, SuSE Linux AG private: pth@t-link.de
participants (10)
-
Bruce Marshall -
Jack Malone -
Matt T. -
Paul Alfille -
pete atkinson -
Philipp Thomas -
pinto -
Tom Duerbusch -
Tony Alfrey -
Vince Littler