Hello friends,
After having successfully downloaded and burned 11.3 ISO to DVD, i’m off to doing dangerous things:
trying to install this on my work laptop which has Win XP SP3.
when the partitioning stuff comes up, it suggests deleting the windows partition.
i have tried various options in terms of editing/resizing existing partitions and have always gotten errors.
Just want to confirm: if I delete the windows partition, i’ll lose my Win XP and all the data i have. Is that right?
Thanks,
Nilesh
Just want to confirm: if I delete the windows partition, i’ll lose my Win XP and all the data i have. Is that right?
YES!
Have a look at these:
Custom Install.mpeg.rar - Windows Live
Thanks Carl.
Unfortunately the mpeg file gives me an error in all media players (WinDVD, Windows Media Player etc.), and the other two are partitioning an empty HD and using the default partitioning.
Any other pointers would be most appreciated.
I have to sleep now.
But generally XP installations should allow for the main C drive (as it’s called) to be shrunk. Generally we would ask for the output from a Linux terminal of fdisk -l
A Live CD like Parted Magic is good for that:
Using Parted Magic an Introduction
From that we can tell Exactly what you have. The partitioning info from windows is next to useless.
Try VLC for those videos, the others you were using are no use at all.
Also, generally the installer will default to shrink windows rather than delete it, so we really could do with the fdisk -l info (that’s a lower case L BTW)
Don’t rush this, wait to get it clear in your mind. I’ll check in in the AM.
Sleep! come on, it’s only midnight 
Thanks though.
I tried to install 11.3 on an older unused laptop that had WinXP on it - for that one it actually had the “shrink partition” option. sadly, once i accepted the partition setup and installed 11.3, then rebooted it, it says “missing operating system”. so now it can find neither WinXP nor the openSUSE 11.3 that it installed.
I downloaded and burned Parted Magic, and i can see the partitions, but i’m not sure what is wrong.
guess i’ll wait for your response.
meanwhile if anyone else has any suggestions, i’m willing to try those.
Thanks in advance,
Nilesh
Open a terminal in Parted Magic and show me the output of
fdisk -l
If you are not online in Parted M, use a usb flash drive to save the information as a .txt file, transfer it to a machine with internet and post it here. If you want to take a screenshot of the graphical partitioner that might help too.
- BTW- You should backup any important data before doing an install and then finally you MUST defrag windows.
I have a similar dilemma, I have already received help for my question about GRUB Legacy overwriting GRUB2 from an Ubuntu install and how that would affect my dual boot. Could the steps in the pictures for the 11.2 install with regards to the partitioning help with 11.3’s installer when I get to the partitioning step? Or does the partition installation section differ from 11.2 to 11.3?
Quick question aside. I am NOT an expert so don’t just run off with my advice. But should you be unsuccessful in repairing Windows you could have the data recovered and examined by a professional, and next time you install Windows XP (or 7 should that be your choice) you could partition half of the drive with the Windows XP installer to be NTFS. The other half could be an extended partition containing openSUSE and its swap (you would have to setup the extended partition in openSUSE’s installer). However, that leads to my above question about the steps involved in that process.
@Jazzmaster94: 11.2 and 11.3 installer are the same
Without seeing your partition setup it is very difficult.
Ideally you should post as suggested here already:
fdisk -l
Hello All,
I’m really not sure what changed … the SuSE installer used to handle this stuff like magic … it shrunk windows and installed … ZERO THOUGHT REQUIRED!
… just as an FYI …
when you get to the partitioning part of the installation routine, click the bottom most option, below the automatically generated choices, “Partitiing Setup”, or something similarly vague … then an option will appear “Create Custom Setup — for Experts” … or something similarly intimidatiing … this is actually the EASIEST route as you get a nice representation of your disks, resize options, etc.
Thanks again for your suggestions.
I tried installing 11.3 on an old toshiba laptop, got the “shrink windows partition” recommendation, went with it, install went fine, but when i rebooted, i got a “missing operating system”.
PartedMagic showed me that the windows partition was still there, but i couldn’t get to it. since this laptop had no useful data, i just nuked everything and installed only openSUSE, and that’s working fine.
if you have any words of wisdom on what i could do after getting the “missing operating system” error, i would appreciate it.
Thanks,
Nilesh
Basically you somehow installed grub incorrectly. To try and say how, is really not possible as only you know what you did - maybe?!
You’ll be better without that other OS anyway.
See my guides in my sig for helps…
Did you try defragmenting the windows drive first. Perhaps the data is to shattered to schrink?
PS: if these things happen to me, I usually think of it as a sign to get rid of Win 