On 02/27/2011 02:39 PM, Mick wrote: > On Sunday 27 February 2011 18:04:26 Florian Philipp wrote: >> Am 27.02.2011 17:02, schrieb Petri Rosenström: >>> On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 5:01 PM, dhk <dhk...@optonline.net> wrote: > >>>> First, the observations. I tried to partition my disk with fdisk the >>>> way I wanted. > > I would recommend you use 'parted -a optimal' or gparted for this purpose > (see > below). > > >>>> It had the usual Linux partitions and a partition that I >>>> was going to use for Window 7. I wanted to make this an LVM2 partition, >>>> but that didn't work; I guess that was too ambitious. > > I am not sure that you can use LVM2 for MSWindows - as far as I know they use > Logical Disk Manager which it is not the same with any other sane LVM > implementation - come on now, would you expect them to seek compatibility or > interoperability?!! > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_Disk_Manager > >>>> Then I just made >>>> it an ordinary static HPFS/NTFS partition on /dev/sda5. When installing >>>> Windows 7 it wouldn't install on that partition. I deleted all the >>>> partitions and just installed it on the first 50Gigs of the disk. >>>> >>>> Second, the questions. The Windows 7 install on the first 50Gigs of the >>>> disk needed to created two partitions. The first was a very small boot >>>> partition that I increased to 128Megs, and the second is the rest of >>>> Windows 7. Now when I boot to the livecd to partition the rest of the >>>> disk for Gentoo fdisk says "Partition 1 does not end on a cylinder >>>> boundary." Is this a problem? The other big question is: what do I do >>> >>> Dunno, it might be that win7 changed the amount of heads/sectors that >>> could give that notice from fdisk. I would not be to worrified about >>> it (Installing windows would be more horrifying). If you have a >>> traditional hd then the worst thing I think might be that reads/writes >>> would be slower. >> >> If I'm not mistaken, this alignment is actually a good thing. It is >> related to the transition from 512 B blocks to 4 kB and also helps >> alignments for SSDs. In this regard, Win 7 behaves very clever and >> really much better than the old and proven Linux tools (unless you know >> what you are doing and are aware of every issue). IMHO it is a real >> shame that most Linux tools are still behind in this regard. > > Only some are. > > The 'parted -a optimal' or gparted will seek to align the end of a partition, > but you will find that it may under/overshoot your specified size to achieve > that. > > fdisk et al have some development to do yet. > > >> If you think you have an HDD with 4kB blocks, ask and I can provide you >> with some links on that topic. >> >>>> about the first partition in the partition table? It is an HPFS/NTFS >>>> partition and has been toggled bootable. It also has some stuff in it >>>> that looks like it's important to Windows: a BOOTSECT.BAK file, a Boot >>>> directory, a System Volume Information directory, and a bootmgr file. >>>> Now for my Gentoo install, how and where do I make a /boot partition? >>>> Do I replace the Windows 7 boot partition with /boot? If so, what >>>> happens to the contents? or Do I make a /boot partition on /dev/sda3 >>>> and toggle the bootable flag there? >>> >>> Something like that. You could install gentoo on one partition (I >>> don't recommend). > > No! Nothing like that. Leave the MS Windows boot partition alone and > flagged > as boot. MS Windows needs this, while Linux does not. > > >>> Just make partitions like you would do without windows. When you do >>> the grub-install script or by hand grub links the boot to the >>> partition where boot exists. You should not remove or change the >>> windows partitions or the data windows will probably brake when you >>> do. > > Yep. Create a new partition; e.g. /dev/sda3 and use that as the /boot > mountpoint for your Linux OS. This is where the grub fs, Linux OS kernels > and > related files will be saved. > > >> AFAIK, grub does not need the bootable flag. Leave it alone. Maybe >> Windows needs it, maybe it is just for good measure, I don't know. > > This is correct, MS Windows needs it and it will not boot without it, > especially if you retain the MSWindows MBR boot code - although you can > install GRUB in the MBR and chainload MSWindows from there with it. > > HTH.
Thanks for all the input. It helped clear up a lot of questions. I spent the weekend installing to Operating Systems and it looks like it almost worked. I think the problem is in the Grub setup, so it should be repairable once I find the mistake. If it's something else, I may be doing this again next weekend. Thanks again, dhk
