Partition trouble with XP target
Tuxedo
This is not exactly a Slackware question.... However, I just set up a
partition table for a new installation on an Intel Pentium M 1.60 GHz
notebook with a standard drive, meaning the spinning platters type
drive, not a new type solid state drive. The partition table looks
like follows:
/dev/hda1 reiserfs 40GB data (shared between various Linux distros)
/dev/hda2 reiserfs 15GB Slackware (main Linux installation)
/dev/hda3 linux-swap 2GB (hardware has 1GB RAM)
/dev/hda4 extended (17.53 available)
/dev/hda5 ntfs 5GB WinXP
/dev/hda6 reiserfs 5GB space allocated for a second linux distro
/dev/hda7 reiserfs 2.5GB space for a third small distro
/dev/hda8 reiserfs 2.5GB space for a fourth small distro
/dev/hda9 reiserfs 2.53.GB space for a fifth small distro
I intend(ed) to get the Windows installation over and done with first.
However, when loading an XP CD, at the point of targeting the ntfs
partition for installation, I ran into trouble with an error that
Windows wants to write "startup files at Id 0 on bus 0 atapi". I guess
that is the beginning of hda1? This is where I would prefer to keep a
data partition, to be shared between any current and future linux
installations, and not to be touched by Windows.
Is it possible to make a Windows installation on an extended logical
partition space?
For example, should I flag the target partition using some fdisk-like
tool beforehand? If so, how? In the end I do not want Windows to have
anything to do with the MBR sector, since that job will obviously
belong to either Grub or Lilo.
Thanks for any advise,
Tuxedo
Grant
Yes, but only if there's a windows primary to hold the boot files,
so you may as well give windows the first primary, and move the swap
partition from last primary to the first logical.
I'm inclined to make primaries bootable and put data in the logical
partitions.
Grant.
--
http://bugsplatter.id.au
Tuxedo
[...]
>
> Yes, but only if there's a windows primary to hold the boot files,
> so you may as well give windows the first primary, and move the swap
> partition from last primary to the first logical.
>
> I'm inclined to make primaries bootable and put data in the logical
> partitions.
>
> Grant.
> --http://bugsplatter.id.au
Ok, thanks for this advise. Anyway, I am not sure if swap is needed.
There seems to be different opinions on this.
I placed the data partition first as I undertstand the drive has to
work less to access data there, in case this will make a noticeable
difference in battery life.
So in other words, what you say is that a Windows ntfs or fat32 must
be in a primary position, preferably the first, and that cannot exist
as a logical part? Does it make sense to have a small separate primary
(ntfs) partition only for the Windows boot sector. I think I read
somewhere that it is possible to make the system look for the boot
manager in a data or any partition, perhaps by flagging it as active,
so that it does not get overwritten with future installations, Windows
or Linux installer.
Windows is more or less unimportant and does certainly not deserve the
best slice of the cake!
Tuxedo
Henrik Carlqvist
> Anyway, I am not sure if swap is needed. There seems to be different
> opinions on this.
I have installed systems with everything between 0 MB and 48 GB of swap.
In your case as a rough guess I think it would be good to configure a
primary partition of maybe 500 MB in the beginning of the disk for swap.
If you know that you will be running programs which require a lot of
memory you might want to increase that. Even if you don't think you will
ever need any swap it might still be a good idea to keep at least 100 MB
for swap on a spinning platters type drive for swapping out unnused
daemons.
> So in other words, what you say is that a Windows ntfs or fat32 must be
> in a primary position, preferably the first, and that cannot exist as a
> logical part?
Windows will have to boot from its "C:" which is the active primary
partition. It doesn't have to be the first partition.
> Does it make sense to have a small separate primary (ntfs) partition
> only for the Windows boot sector.
You could do it that way with a small C: and a bigger D:, but if I were
running Windows natively I think I would prefer a single bigger C:.
> I think I read somewhere that it is possible to make the system look for
> the boot manager in a data or any partition, perhaps by flagging it as
> active, so that it does not get overwritten with future installations,
> Windows or Linux installer.
The MBR written to the beginning of /dev/hda by the Windows installer
looks for the active primary partition to boot from. If you overwrite that
MBR with lilo the bootloader will no longer care about the active
partition, but maybe Windows still requires C: to be active. I can't say
for sure what would happen if you keep the windows MBR and write lilo to
the active partition, maybe it would work, I haven't tried it.
> Windows is more or less unimportant and does certainly not deserve the
> best slice of the cake!
If so you and if yo want your data partition to be hda1 you could
partition your drive like this:
hda1 data
hda2 swap
hda3 extended with more logical partitions
hda4 active primary windows partition
regards Henrik
--
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Tuxedo
wrote:
Thanks for the various tips! It sounds like a sensible partition set-
up as this way everything important can reside at the beginning of the
drive. I will try it, including testing the placement of Lilo or
Grub.
With regards to memory, it's just one of these unanswerable questions,
so guess 1GB will be sufficient.
Will 15GB likely be enough for the Slackware installallation? What is
the average storage requirements for Slackware plus various downloaded
programs excluding personal data? I mean has anyone knowingly gone
over 15GB on Slackware files plus installed programs etc,? I intend to
run the full DVD version, including support for all possible
languages.
Tuxedo
Henrik Carlqvist
> Will 15GB likely be enough for the Slackware installallation? What is
> the average storage requirements for Slackware plus various downloaded
> programs excluding personal data?
There are two laws of physics to consider:
1) All hard drives are binary, they are either new or full.
2) It takes 8 months to fill a hard drive no matter what size the drive
has.
That said, for only standard Slackware packages and some extra programs I
think that 12 GB should be enough as you have /home on a separate
partition. Rule 2 above mostly applies to partitions like /home. On my
last Slackware installation I partitioned 27 GB for /, /usr, /opt, /var
and /tmp but that was mostly to leave some space to grow in.
Thomas Ronayne
> Is it possible to make a Windows installation on an extended logical
> partition space?
>
> For example, should I flag the target partition using some fdisk-like
> tool beforehand? If so, how? In the end I do not want Windows to have
> anything to do with the MBR sector, since that job will obviously
> belong to either Grub or Lilo.
>
try. It runs just fine in Slackware, you can install XP without having
to worry about any MBR nonsense and it stays out of your way until you
actually need it for something. I bought a new laptop in October, blew
away Vista entirely, installed Slackware 13.0, installed VirtualBox,
installed XP in VirtualBox and all is well with the world (I need XP for
Turbotax and Stamps.com and otherwise it is never, ever started... oh,
yeah, it's started on patch Tuesday but then it is Windows after all).
I use a partition named "virtual" mounted to /var/lib (so it's
/var/lib/virtual) have had zero problems and highly recommend VirtualBox
for getting Bill and the Gang out of your pants as much as is possible.
Tuxedo
wrote:
> Tuxedo <tux...@mailinator.com> wrote:
> > Will 15GB likely be enough for the Slackware installallation? What is
> > the average storage requirements for Slackware plus various downloaded
> > programs excluding personal data?
>
> There are two laws of physics to consider:
>
> 1) All hard drives are binary, they are either new or full.
>
> 2) It takes 8 months to fill a hard drive no matter what size the drive
> has.
>
> That said, for only standard Slackware packages and some extra programs I
> think that 12 GB should be enough as you have /home on a separate
> partition. Rule 2 above mostly applies to partitions like /home. On my
> last Slackware installation I partitioned 27 GB for /, /usr, /opt, /var
> and /tmp but that was mostly to leave some space to grow in.
[...]
Good to know what space is needed for Slackware packages and the rules
about expanding diskpace :-)
I'm not strictly speaking using a shared home, as that can cause
conflict between dotfiles of different distros. Instead, I plan to set
up a shared data partitioning, like this example:
http://blog.linuxtoday.com/blog/2009/08/painless-linux.html
As such, I will avoid keeping user data directly in /home/ but instead
in /home/data/.
Tuxedo
Tuxedo
Sounds interesting, I've never heard about VirtualBox before. I will
check it out.
I read the following at http://www.multibooters.co.uk/quirks.html :
"Vista is creating partitions to a new plan that is not entirely
compatible with previous versions of Windows, see Vista’s New
Partitioning Rules. The biggest problem seems limited to only logical
partitions, with both XP and Vista in certain circumstances deleting
partitions that were created by the other. If you have conventional
partitions and you delete the first logical in an extended partition
and let Vista recreate it during the install of itself, then any other
logical in that extended partition will most times be deleted. Using
the Vista partitioning tools manually can also sometimes produce the
same result. (Vista SP1and 2, Server 2008 and Win7 final retail
release have not fixed this major bug)."
Anyhow, I don't plan on installing Vista, and in any case, it's no
major problem with an overwritten MBR after a Windows reinstall. It's
very easy to restore a multi-boot situation with the help of a live CD
like Knoppix.
Tuxedo
Grant
...
>"Vista is creating partitions to a new plan that is not entirely
>compatible with previous versions of Windows, see Vista’s New
>Partitioning Rules. The biggest problem seems limited to only logical
>partitions, with both XP and Vista in certain circumstances deleting
>partitions that were created by the other. If you have conventional
>partitions and you delete the first logical in an extended partition
>and let Vista recreate it during the install of itself, then any other
>logical in that extended partition will most times be deleted. Using
>the Vista partitioning tools manually can also sometimes produce the
>same result. (Vista SP1and 2, Server 2008 and Win7 final retail
>release have not fixed this major bug)."
I haven't let windwos touc hthe partition table for years, linux
fdisk does the job reliably for me (pick a tool and get to know it
well, there's a choice of *fdisk tools).
Grant.
--
http://bugsplatter.id.au
Chick Tower
> I'm not strictly speaking using a shared home, as that can cause
> conflict between dotfiles of different distros.
Or you can use different directories for different users, just like
/home already does. For example, my username is ctower, but my home
directory is /home/ctslk12, because I'm running Slackware 12.0 right
now. I used /home/ctslk11 for when I ran Slackware 11.0, but my
username was still ctower. That way my personal configuration files
don't conflict. If you use adduser to create users, it asks you for a
home folder directory, so you can specify something unique then. If you
specify it use the same uid, then you have access to the other home
directories just as if you were the user under that distro or version.
--
Chick Tower
For e-mail: aols2 DOT sent DOT towerboy AT xoxy DOT net
Tuxedo
Thanks for pointing this out. However, I'm not sure what's best here, or
whether it may be important to preserve version specific home directories
for what I'm going to set up, ie. multiple distros and separate user data
directory but not necessarily separate program settings and preferences in
dotfiles between versions of same distrubutions. Such files probably
transcends fine between upgrades, as long as they're from the same distro.
Tuxedo
Chick Tower
> Thanks for pointing this out. However, I'm not sure what's best here, or
> whether it may be important to preserve version specific home directories
> for what I'm going to set up, ie. multiple distros and separate user data
> directory but not necessarily separate program settings and preferences in
> dotfiles between versions of same distrubutions. Such files probably
> transcends fine between upgrades, as long as they're from the same distro.
The same idea works for different versions of one distro, different distros,
and different users. So you can have one partition or drive for /home
and use it for every user's home directory, if you care to.