On Thursday 10 March 2005 06:13 am, Mr. Geek wrote: > Dennis Myers wrote: > > I have a new HP zv5360us laptop, NTFS partition with Windows XP on it. > > When I try to install Mandrake 10.1 It refuses to resize the windows > > partition. Am I going about this wrong. I know linux will run on it as > > pclinuxonline cd runs ok. I just can't get an xfs partition set up. Any > > ideas? TIA, > > > > Dennis M. linux user #180842 > > Dennis; I have the HP ZD7000 laptop, so I have an idea of what you're > going through. Your laptop should have included a set of CD's from HP > which include WindowsXP. > > I tried setting mine up the same way you're doing, but it was a major > PITA to do, and I wasn't very happy with the final results. Assuming > that you don't want to have any more hassles with Windows than you're > rightfully entitled to (Grin!), I'd strongly recommend that you save > whatever data might be important and start from scratch. > > If you didn't receive the CD pack with your laptop, you should be able > to burn a copy of the stored "Rescue Images" that are currently on the > hard drive, and I would suggest you burn a copy of them a.s.a.p.! Since > you don't know what might happen with the laptop down the road, it would > be a smart idea to have a copy of the WindowsXP images in case your hard > drive dies on you. > > After several attempts to get my unit working to my satisfaction, I > re-partitioned my hard drive, losing Windows in the process. Starting > with a fresh installation of our favourite OS, I installed Mandrake as > my second OS by creating a blank partition (roughly 10GB's) as the first > partition and leaving it alone, then I continued with a normal > Mandrake setup. When I got to the section of the Mandrake install > concerning Lilo, I had it install itself to the Master Boot Record on > "/hda". > > The "/" (root) partition was set to 6 GB's (ReiserFS), then came a Swap > partition (about 800 MB's), and a "/home" partition of 2 GB's was also > set as ReiserFS. Even taking into account the fact that my laptop has an > 80 Gb drive, I left my Mandrake partitions that small. > > The remainder of the hard drive was left blank (for the time being). > > Many of the big PC companies (HP, Compaq, Dell, IBM, etc.) like to > provide you with "Quick Restore" CD's or images (stored on your > harddrive), but in many cases those images are specially modified images > that include Windows and any third-party software that they've arranged > to include. > > These aren't the pre-installation versions like you'd find on a retail > CD. They're a post-installation version which was created by HP or > whoever. In essence, they perform a full install of Windows, MS Office > or MS Works, etc., on one master hard drive, then they create an image > of that master install and copy it to thousands of PC's or laptops. > > Those Quick-Restore images are similar to a Norton Ghost image and when > you use them, they're designed to use the first partition of the drive. > In most cases, the first partition is actually the entire drive, so they > essentially try to install themselves across that first partition. > > However, if your hard drive is already partitioned, they only use which > ever partition is first on the drive. > > Getting back to my partitions, this means that the 10GB blank partition > that I created at the front of the drive is the one that the > Quick-Restore CD's will see, so it installs itself to that partition. > > Once you've finished installing Windows to that first partition, either > using a Quick-Restore CD or by doing a normal install of Windows, the > hard part is done. Since the restore image was originally setup using > NTFS, that first partition is automatically formatted as NTFS. If your > CD's include a normal (and not a Quick-Restore image) version of > Windows, you'll see that the default or suggested formatting is also NTFS. > > Remember to leave the remaining unused space on your hard drive alone > for the time being. We'll get back to that in a bit. > > The nice thing is that the restore or full install methods won't do > anything to your Master Boot Record, since Windows detects that the > Master Boot Record is already in use. Lilo is already installed there. > That means that the next time you boot the laptop, Lilo will still be > there, and will only show you the Mandrake-Linux option. > > No problem. That's exactly what should be there. Once you've booted back > into Linux, start up your Mandrake Control Center (a.k.a. MCC), and add > the 10Gb Windows partition by creating a mount point for it. You're not > obligated to use the Mandrake default mount-point, so feel free to be > creative. Just don't mount it inside the "/root" home folder! > > Now, the last partition. My HP laptop came with an 80GB drive. Since > Microsoft is trying to deter people from using FAT32 partitions with > WindowsXP, they've Windows so that it won't format a FAT32 partition > that's larger than 32GB's. > > Windows still accesses FAT32 partitions or drives that are larger than > 32GB's with no hassle whatsoever, but Microsoft simply changed the > format limits of WinXP so that it refuses to format any larger than that. > > If you ended up with the 60 or 80 GB drive in your laptop and you've > used the partition sizes I mentioned above, Windows will not format the > remaining space as FAT32. > > But Mandrake will! Leave it to Linux to solve a Microsoft problem! LOL! > > By using Linux to format your remaining space as FAT32, you'll be able > to access it from Mandrake AND from Windows without any problems. Once > that's partitioned, formatted and mounted in MCC, remember to update > Lilo as well. That way, Windows will be added to your boot list in Lilo. > > If you create a "My Documents" folder on that partition, you can tell > Windows to move it's My Documents folder to the same place by > right-clicking the My Documents on your desktop, clicking on Properties, > and changing the location. > > In KDE's Control Center, you can select the same folder for your user's > "Documents" folder under "System > Paths". Microsoft Office and > Microsoft Works will both use the new location by default. > > In short, you'll have WindowsXP installed on a 10GB partition formatted > with NTFS, followed by about 9GB's used up by Mandrake, and the > remaining space on the drive will be a large FAT32 storage partition > that both OS's can easily access. > > The main Windows partition can be used as a dedicated space where only > your programs are installed and all your user data (MP3's, Email, > Documents, etc.) is stored on that last FAT32 partition. If you ever > need to re-install Windows (which you probably will, sigh!), at least it > won't cost you anything you've downloaded. > > Programs like Mozilla Thunderbird can be configured to use the storage > partition to store your profile and mail, which can then be accessed by > Mozilla-Thunderbird on your Linux partition. Same emails, same accounts, > same filters, everything. > > Hope that helps. I was nervous about reformatting not knowing what the restore disk was capable of. I have a 40 gig hd and used 20 of it for linux and the first 20 for windows. I Will eventually wipe out windows but for now I want to have a look at XP to see what is changed from 2000. Your explanation was excellent. I could never figure out how to install on the back side of the disk and leave the front for windows, now I know, thank you. Let you all know how it comes out. Thanks for all the input everyone. -- Dennis M. linux user #180842
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