On Wednesday 12 November 2003 13:38 pm, Peter N. Spotts wrote:

Folks,

I just replaced RH 8.0 with SuSE 9.0 on my dual-boot Toshiba Satellite 1905-303 and the conversion went flawlessly. Interestingly, when I finished, I noticed that SuSE had established several "data" partitions, one of which sent me back to the Windows XP side of the box. Having read about some of 9.0's greatest hits in advance of installation, I expected that. I didn't expect the other four data partitions, which seem to contain former Red Hat directories, including /home/~. Can someone give me the Cliffs Notes version of what SuSE decides to preserve from an older installation when SuSE installs? And how easy is it to return those partitions to wider use once I've determined that I no longer need the files they contain?

Best regards,

Unless you tell it differently, an SUSE install will create new partitions and leave your old ones intact. It then will mount them as /data1, /data2, etc... When you decide you no longer need them, just delete them with your fav partition utility. BUT NOTE: Deleting them will change your partition numbers and you should change your /etc/fstab before you shutdown to do the delete. Otherwise your system will not likely boot the next time around. If you forget, fear not, because you can boot the SUSE rescue disk and go in and make the change after it fails to boot. I always define new partitions before making a new install and then tell SUSE to use the ones I created. Saves a lot of WTF??

Pete

P.S. If this is too elementary for general list lurkers, feel free to respond off-list...

-- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ + Bruce S. Marshall bmarsh@bmarsh.com Bellaire, MI 11/12/03 14:47 + +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ "It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for."