Get help on partitioning here [Part 1]

Ryllharu · Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2004 12:03 am Post subject:

I'm real new to Linux and I was wondering if the fdisk partitioner is destructive or does it work like Partition Magic and just make a partition with free space and leave the rest alone?

Herrscher · n00b Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 27 Location: Germany

staninnyc · n00b Joined: 21 Nov 2004 Posts: 1

As with many people, I want to dual boot between Windows XP and Gentoo. I also want to do this non-destructively, which means I need to keep my existing NTFS partition.

My first preference is to keep the NTFS partition as the first partition. As a second choice, I could create an initial FAT16 partition before the existing NTFS partition with PartitionMagic. This is recommended by I have been using my old laptop as a test platform and had a bad experience with this. I purchased DiskMagic and use it exactly once. After the reboot it got an error and I lose the disk. So much for my $70! Also, I am not clear what the advantage is with this configuration as there does not seem to be any restriction on the location of partitions anymore.

So here are my questions with Option 1.
1. Since NTFS is the first partition, this means the MBR will be on this partition and therefore GRUB will be installed there with Windows NT. Is this OK?
2. The installation instructions say that when using fdisk you should set the bootable flag for the boot partition. In this configuration, should both the NTFS partition and Linux bootable partition be marked as bootable?
3. What does the bootable flag do anyway? I thought the BIOS loads GRUB from the MBR and the GRUB configuration file tells it the location of the installed O/Ss. What role does the bootable flag play?

With Option 2, I am unclear how to create the initial partition.
4. I will likely try again to use DiskMagic, which means that fdisk will not be the program creating the FAT16 partition. Is this OK?
5. Do I then run mke2fs on an existing FAT16 partition?

Thanks in advance,

Stan

Wampas · n00b Joined: 16 Nov 2004 Posts: 48

MickKi

Hi staninnyc,

Slammed · n00b Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 3 Location: CT

Hello People

I am experimenting with Linux and I am about to install Gentoo on my Laptop
I have a 30gb HD with XP installed I want to dual boot
there is 18.9gb left on the drive can you please help me set up with Fdisk thanks

P.s I am a big NOOB so you might have to break it down abit but I do know about Fdisk LOL
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Echtelion · n00b Joined: 26 Jul 2004 Posts: 20

About fdisk just follow the Installation Handbook carefully: it is very well writen.

You can only have 4 primary partitions in a disk, all others must be logical inside one extended. I will assume that you have only one *indows partition and some unpartioned space. Create the following partitioning scheme:

/dev/hda1 : primary : (some space) : *indows : (already exists)
/dev/hda2 : primary : 128M : /boot : boot partition
/dev/hda3 : primary : (double your memory) : swap : swap space
/dev/hda4 : primary : (rest of your disk space) : / : main linux partition

Good luck!

JMM · n00b Joined: 24 Nov 2004 Posts: 19

Gentoo isn't exactly the easiest distro to start with...
But if you make it through, you'll be that much smarter.

Windows XP partitions the entire drive as NTFS by default, so you'd have to resize the Windows partition first. SystemRescueCD (google it) has qtParted on it, which is able to do that. Defragging first would be a good idea.

pengie · n00b Joined: 17 Dec 2003 Posts: 74 Location: Australia

Viewing my partion table

Slammed · n00b Joined: 03 Dec 2004 Posts: 3 Location: CT

pengie · n00b Joined: 17 Dec 2003 Posts: 74 Location: Australia

Also when I run this command

We will now extract the stage tarball of your choice. We will do this with the GNU tar tool. Make sure you use the same options (-xvjpf)! In the next example, we extract the stage tarball stage3-<subarch>-2004.2.tar.bz2. Be sure to substitute the tarball filename with your stage.

SinMinister · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 7:52 am Post subject:

hello all,
I have a problem, I installed gentoo as per the instruction booklet, i.e. 3 partitions, one for boot, one for swap and one for root. However, as I had windows installed (and wanted to keep it

) I used Partition Magic to create the boot and swap partitions before the windows one, and the root after. When I was installing gentoo, fdisk gave me this configuration:
hdc1 - ntfs
hdc2 - linux boot
hdc3 - linux swap
hdc4 - linux

The problem occurs when I try boot into gentoo, it starts loading then an error comes up saying that it cannot read the fs from the root partition. Furthermore, windows does not boot either. The Windows XP splash come up, but then goes into a blue screen of death.

I tried editing the grub configuration at boot time, but nothing helps. What have I done wrong, and is there a way to fix it without doing a format?
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SinMinister · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 10:22 am Post subject:

hello?
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jeffix · n00b Joined: 09 Dec 2004 Posts: 59 Location: Paris, FR

jensa · n00b Joined: 16 Dec 2004 Posts: 12

Hi, I currently have Suse installed on my amd64 computer but would like to switch to Gentoo, but before I start deleting my system I would like to check if anybody sees a problem with the way I was planning to do the switch.

You see when I installed my current distro I made a clean installl (erased entire harddrive before installing) and chose to use three partitions \boot \swap and \
(The reason for this was that I did not want to estimate how much space my \home would take because I constantly add new huge video files, but I also frequently install new big programs so I stuck with just one partition for everything.)

Anyway, my plan was to create a directory \video where I keep all the videofiles I would like to keep when I switch to gentoo. After what I understand, I can then install gentoo (stage 2) by just mounting my old \ from the live-CD and delete my old \bin \usr \var \home etc and proceed with the installation as usual (of course not repartitioning).
After the install is finished I would have my new gentoo system and a directory \video where all my old videofiles are.

Does anybody see a problem with this? I really wouldnt like to loose all my personal video-files.

Thanks.

shashir · n00b Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 18

Things to remember while partitioning:

Keep /home partition the largest
Keep / (the root partition) the second largest
/tmp is not necessary, but if you want keep it around 1-2 gigs
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xgregx · Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 6:33 pm Post subject:

How do you create extended partitions? I know how to do it in fdisk, but I don't think I'm doing it the right way, because I'm ending up with weird sizes and running out of primary spaces. Do you need to create a primary, then create the extended off of it? I know you can only make 4 primaries. So should I create 3, then use the last one to create the extendeds? I'm not sure. I like to have different files systems for:
/
/boot
/usr
/var
/home
/tmp

Let me know, any help is appreciated. Thanks.
Greg

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taipan67 · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 4:04 pm Post subject:

I thought i'd post my experiences with Linux installations, & particularly Gentoo installations, as it provided some profound lessons that no other distro did, & i hope they may help others...

To help readers decide if this post is worth persevering with, the points covered are:-

1. Partitions & directories aren't the same thing.
2. Related instal-errors.
3. Sizing of seperate partitions for /boot & other directories.
Note: MS Windows not used, so no specific dual-booting advice.

Partitions & directories aren't the same thing.

With every other distro i've played with (& that's practically all of them), the partitioning tool used prompts the user to name each partition as they go along. The first big lesson i learned with Gentoo is that the partition table has nothing to do with what's stored on it, until those partitions are mounted into the directory tree. As far as Linux is concerned, each partition is just a device-file, & what's stored on them is governed by the '/etc/fstab' file, & the 'mount' command.

Related instal-errrors.

In an earlier post, someone had an error during a 'Stage tarball extraction', when they ran out of disk-space. I think this would've been because the tarball was trying to extract itself into only what the user had intended to be their / (root) partition, & not using the ones intended for /usr, /var, & so on.

As i said in the first section, Linux looks for it's files (EVERYTHING is a file, including all harddrives & their partitions) in a known location within the directory-tree. If /usr is on a seperate partition, Linux will know this from reading the '/etc/fstab' file.

Unfortunately, this directory-tree is created during installation by extracting the 'Stage tarball', & /etc/fstab doesn't exist yet. That's why (following the handbook) we use 'mkdir' to create points to mount our extra partitions at. Then, if we've made, for example, a /usr directory, & mounted a partition at that point, the 'Stage tarball extraction', & more notably the 'Portage snapshot extraction' will be installed on the intended partition.

Sizing of seperate partitions for /boot & other directories.

I won't offer any particular guidelines on this issue, i'll just list some of my personal settings, which may assist in your deliberations...

When i created my partition table, i wanted to install Gentoo & 'Linux From Scratch', & be able to share all user settings between the two. So i created this configuration:-

biohazzard · Posted: Thu Jan 20, 2005 6:54 pm Post subject:

Personally I use cfdisk over fdisk, starting out on Linux I found that it was much easier and alot more simple. I used to have two partitions, Windows XP, and a somewhat blank ntfs. I wanted to dualboot Linux so all I did was move over any files I wanted from the ntfs over to the Windows XP partition, then I booted Linux and ran cfdisk and scrolled down the second partition (the ntfs one) and deleted it. This turned it into unpartitioned space so then I made three partitions, my Linux (~8GB), my swap (~700MB), and a vfat for transfering files between Linux and Windows (~2GB). I didn't and still don't see a HUGE reason to make a separate partition for /boot but I am considering making /home boot on it's own partition. Anyway, I'd recommend cfdisk over fdisk to anyone starting new to Linux or partitioning in general.

sirsleepsalot18 · n00b Joined: 21 Jan 2005 Posts: 1 Location: Chicago, IL

taipan67 · Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2005 12:04 am Post subject: Re: Still A Few Questions...

jetoo · n00b Joined: 01 Feb 2005 Posts: 12

Hi all,

I just discovered gentoo and wanted to install it on my laptop with windows already installed... but i got a small problem partitioning.

jetoo · n00b Joined: 01 Feb 2005 Posts: 12

(can't edit the post)

the right message is: no free sectors available.

what does it mean?

taipan67 · Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:59 pm Post subject:

jetoo,

It looks like the reason you can't create another partition is that your hard-drive is fully allocated.

The 2nd partition, hda2 is an 'extended' partition, which uses all of the remaining disk-space, & it is completely used up by hda5, which is a 'logical' partition (probably known to you as your D: drive).

If you want to install Gentoo on that hard-drive, you're going to have to shrink a partition or two. Now, i'm afraid i haven't used Windows for an awfully long time, & i can't remember how to do that. Backtrack through the thread, & i'm fairly sure you'll find a post about the process.

How much space you need to free up depends on what you want to install. I have an almost complete installation of:- Xorg; Gnome; OpenOffice; Gimp; Mozilla; a couple of media-players; a couple of CD-writers; some p2p stuff; ...taking up about 4Gb. That's not including the /home directory, where i keep my movies & mp3's. You also need to allow an additional 3-4Gb for Portage to use as temporary storage during builds.
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jetoo · n00b Joined: 01 Feb 2005 Posts: 12

thanx for the answer.

Actually, i've got 2 windows partitions (one with the OS and one with data), i also have one last free partition.
so i'm sure i can install gentoo on the free partition right?
how can i make the free partition (about 4gb) to be available for gentoo?