It would appear that on Oct 22, James Knott did say:
Hans Witvliet wrote:
i examined the drive and noticed that all primary partitions are already in use:
One thing I notice when reading about UEFI is that it no longer has the 4 primary partition limit, so perhaps that not going to be a problem.
That, of course, would depend on whether or not Hans' new machine, like your ThinkPad has UEFI or is it a bios machine. I don't think he said.
Regardless, the first thing you want to do is make or obtain a set of recovery discs, so that you can always restore the computer to factory default. If you're still stuck with 4 primary partitions, then you can delete the restore partition.
That sounds reasonable. Though If it were me, just in case, I'd also make a separate, back-up image of whichever partition he, may need to delete {if his machine is in fact bios based}. Then if he makes the first logical partition the same exact size {or at least, not smaller} than the partition he deleted, he should be able to restore the image to the logical partition... Just an idea but since the OP mentioned using dd to make a whole drive image, then I expect he can do the same with a single partition... I've done some reading on doing this with Windows 7 BTW, and for reasons similar to recommending that he use Linux tools to create the new Linux partitions rather than using windows based tools, it's strongly recommended to use the Win 7 supplied "partition format and sizing tool" to actually shrink the "sda2 442G ntfs" partition with. It seems that Win 7 is very touchy about it's partitions. And some slight diff in the resulting shrunk partition may cause Win 7 to become unbootable... 1) So what I'd recommend to Hans is that he 1st determine if his machine uses bios or UEFI. 2) Then if bios, he should make a back up image of whichever partition he is going to delete. (perhaps with dd) (taking careful note of it's size prior to deleting it of course. {And if he does that with the Linux fdisk tool he might want to use the u option to change the unit of measure to the depreciated "cylinders type and print the partition table again and note the number of cylinders used ["end cyl" - "start cyl"] so that he can make really sure that the new replacement partition is not even one byte smaller than the original, before he restores the partition image to it...}) 3)Next, with either bios or UEFI, I'd suggest booting win7 and if possible/practical make that recovery disk. Then while win 7 is running, find and use it's partition sizing tool to shrink the 442 gig partition. I don't know how much room win 7 really needs But I doubt it will need more than a third of the hard drive so maybe I'd shrink it to 142 gig... But that is for Hans to decide ;) Note:if the windows partition shrinking tool doesn't automatically move the 20 gig ntfs and the 4 gig fat partitions next to the newly shrunk partition, I'd also use the windows tool to do that. So that all the free space winds up in one contiguous chunk. Though if the 4gig fat partition is going to be deleted then there is no point wasting time moving it... Now that the big windows partition has been shrunk {using windows tools} I'd suggest using Linux tools for the rest. 4) If bios: delete the backed up partition and create an extended partition with all the freespace. And then create a logical partition of the same size as the deleted one and restore the saved partition image to it. But I wouldn't create the Linux partitions just yet, (unless I strongly preferred to manually manage that part of the process with the particular tool I was already using...) 5) bios or UEFI: Now that there is sufficient unallocated free space available on the drive, I'd boot the installation disk, and look for an option to install Linux to *_free_space_* on the hard drive. I can't remember if OpenSuSE's installer disk has that option, but I'd be surprised if it was missing. And if it's there, it would allow the installer to determine how big a swap partition, and whether or not to create separate /usr or /home partitions etc... But to do it that way Hans will have had to leave the free space in an unallocated state. If he insisted on creating them himself he will need to use a "custom" partitioning option to select which partitions to use, and to select their mount points, and so on. 6) Install and hope for the best. Does anybody see a flaw in that process that I'm forgetting to warn Hans about??? -- | ~^~ ~^~ | <*> <*> | ^ JtWdyP | \___/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org