-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Ray Olszewski wrote: | At 08:25 PM 2/24/2004 -0500, Karthik Vishwanath wrote: | |>Hello, |> |>I have a dual-boot system (with windows-98 and redhat 7.3) setup on an old |>hard disk. I recently obtained a new hard drive and have their order |>configured such that the old drive is /dev/hda and the new one is |>/dev/hdb. The partitions on /dev/hda are as follows: |> |>/dev/hda1 * 1 960 7703608+ c Win95 FAT32 (LBA) |>/dev/hda2 960 963 30240 83 Linux |>/dev/hda3 963 1365 3228120 83 Linux |>/dev/hda4 1365 1653 2313360 5 Extended |>/dev/hda5 1365 1397 257008+ 82 Linux swap |>/dev/hda6 1397 1653 2056288+ 83 Linux |> |>with /dev/hda2 -> /boot, /dev/hda3 -> /, /dev/hda6 -> /home. |> |>The partitions on /dev/hdb are defined as: |> |>/dev/hdb1 1 6684 53689198+ c Win95 FAT32 (LBA) |>/dev/hdb2 6685 8143 11719417+ 83 Linux |>/dev/hdb3 8144 9600 11703352+ 83 Linux |>/dev/hdb4 9601 9729 1036192+ 82 Linux swap |> |> |>I want to: install Fedora on /dev/hdb by making /dev/hdb2 -> /, copy |>/dev/hda6 to /dev/hdb3 (-> /home) and successfully dual-boot. I have the |>following questions; |> |>1. Can I boot from the Fedora CD and get the installation going (with |>properly defined partitions) and subsequently mounting and copying /dev/hda6 |>to /home, without disturbing anything on /dev/hda at all? | | | You should be able to. I haven't actually done a Fedora install, but I'd be | amazed if it couldn't handle this configuration. | | |>2. Is it preferred that I preserve the /boot partition - i.e. will it help |>if /boot remains on /dev/hda2? | | | It mainly depends on what your BIOS will put up with. LILO (or do you use | GRUB?) doesn't care where the boot partition (in effect, the Linux kernel) | is, as long as the BIOS can find it. The historical reason for a separate | boot partition was the old 1024-cylinder limit for BIOS access, a limit | long gone. I've seen some occasional BIOS problems still, though, with | drives over 40 GB. If your system has such a problem, you'll need a boot | partition spmewhere near the front of one of the drives. | | |>3. What are the details I must watch out for in this process? | | | Hard to say, aside from inane advice like "Don't do anything silly". You've | pretty much asked the right questions. | | As long as you tell Fedora to install to hdb2, it should ignore all the | hda* partitions (except maybe for asking you if you want to specify mount | points for them). And, as I said, you will have to wait and see if you can | boot a kernel located on hdb2. | | Remember that with this approach, you're still installing lilo (or GRUB or | whatever) on the MBR of hda. So you'll need either to add back in the | multi-boot stuff that lets Windows boot, or install Fedora to boot from | floppy, then edit your existing multiboot setup to add Fedora to it. | | Were I doing this, I think I'd do it the reverse way -- make the new drive | hda and the old one hdb. Fiddle with the partitioning as needed to get a | working /boot partition for Linux. Probably only have one real Linux | partition (plus a small /boot partition), just to avoid an Extended | partition ... though the merits of that idea depend completely on what you | actually use this system for. | | Then install Windows to the new hda1, Linux to the new hda2 and hda3 ... | and use the old drive, however you reconfigure it, as a data drive. | | |>4. Finally - if all goes well, can I delete partitions /dev/hda(2)3-6 and |>make /dev/hda available as one single partition, without hosing windows? | | | Not with Linux tools (though fdisk can easily delete hda2-6 for you). | You'll need help from a Windows list to modify the size of the actual | Windows partition. | |
Ray covered everything really well, just a couple things I wanted to add. First, like Ray I would also suggest switching the harddrives so the new one was hda & the old one was hdb. The Linux Doc Project has a good mini-howto on this (although they describe completely swapping out the old hard drive, but it would be easy just to reformat it for a data drive like Ray mentioned). The Hard Disk Upgrade mini-Howto is at: <http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Hard-Disk-Upgrade/index.html>
Secondly, on your last question: |>4. Finally - if all goes well, can I delete partitions /dev/hda(2)3-6 |>and make /dev/hda available as one single partition, without hosing |>windows? | | Not with Linux tools (though fdisk can easily delete hda2-6 for you). | You'll need help from a Windows list to modify the size of the actual | Windows partition.
I have never used it myself, but I believe GNU parted may do what you are describing. GNU parted is a program for advanced manipulation of disk partitions. If it isn't already installed on your system, you can get it at: <http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/parted.html>. Of course, while it hopefully wouldn't hose windows, there is no guarantee.
Just my 2 cents, Conway S. Smith -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
iD8DBQFAPCQEGL3AU+cCPDERAoZcAKDMIfTr/ZUuuyCL7EllChSQpyNhVACfafQV E5D8onnw/W1zDR66OkdqLBc= =KcDe -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs
