Dual boot installation with windows 7

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#1

Hello friends…
I am very much excited to try out openSUSE 11.3… But i am very much afraid of losing my data in windows partitions without knowing the exact procedure to install it…

here are my existing partition list… Please have a look at it and suggest me…

c : 40 GB
d: 120 GB
e: 140 GB
f: 140 GB

and i have some free space of 28 GB… It is unallocated… I want to install openSUSE into this free space…

Now please tell me whether i can proceed with the default disk configurations given at the install time or do i have to modify and adjust the partitions or do i have to create partitions for the available free space…

I am very much afraid of losing my data… please suggest me friends…

#2

Hi.

First thing : do a backup of you’re important data. It is important.

Second, 28Gb is not a lot of space to install openSUSE. I would recommend at least 3 partitions to install openSUSE :

  1. Root partition (/) with a minimum of 15 to 20 Gb
  2. a home partition (/home) where all you’re settings and documents will be saved (as My Documents in win). Here you’ll need something like 10Gb to whatever you want.
  3. a swap partition of min. 2Gb

So, a minimum of 40Gb would be great in my opinion.

Some reading for installation : http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Installation

#3

oh my god… This is the only linux forums i found to get replies within minutes… Thanks a lot for quick replies…

I am ready to give room for opneSUSE but my question is…

will openSUSE installer select the free space as the default location for installation or will it choose some thing else???

also please mention if the default location selected is free space,do i have to mention the required swap,home and root partitions manually or they are automatically selected…

#4

openSUSE will select automatically for you if you wish, but you can do it manually too.

Check this step in the link I gave you : Setting up your disk

If you want to do it manually, you have to edit partitions.

In many cases, the suggestion of the installer is okay, but you’ll have to check if it’s okay for you.

#5

sure…thank you very much…:slight_smile:

#6

one more doubt…
how can i identify whether the suggested partitioning is done for the free space?

#7

The info about your partitions is not sufficient to give conclusive advice.
My guess is you will not be able to proceed.
Please download this and burn it to a cd
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10573557/pmagic-4.5.iso

Boot from it and open the Roxterm
and post result of

fdisk -l
#8

why dont openSUSE select my free space of 28 gb and install in it…

I think if i post an image of my disk layout from windows 7 will make you to understand better…

#9

i have installed fedora currently…
i will post the screenshot when i have uninstalled fedora and make roomfor openSUSE…

#10

28 GB is not too much but enough to start with. It doesn’t mean that 40GB or more would not be better.

Example: openSUSE with Kde + Gnome + Xfce - in a single partition on iMac, including swap (swap file)

# df -hl
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3              64G   26G   35G  43% /
devtmpfs              994M  408K  993M   1% /dev
tmpfs                 995M  1.7M  994M   1% /dev/shm
# du /srv/vbox -hs
14G     /srv/vbox

14 GB is a virtual machine, so it doesn’t count.
26 - 14 = 12GB used by Linux on that machine.

#11

During openSUSE setup in the partitioner, select the last of the 3 options “Create partition setup” (for experts), create 3 partitions in the free space : 2 GB for Swap, 20 GB for / and the rest for /home (you don’t have more space). If you have already a swap partition for Fedora, you can use it. So you don’t need to create another one. If you have a /home partition for Fedora, you can use it too. Just think about using different login names under Fedora and openSUSE. In this case you would just have to create a single partition for openSUSE root in your 28GB. It will be enough.

#12

Note you appear to have 4 partitions. You can have only 4 primary partitions. One of these may be a an extended partition which then can have additional logical partitions. But if all the partitions you listed are primary or the even if there is an extended, if the space is out side of the 4 primaries/extended you simply can not use it. Windows never give a proper view of the partitioning. You need to post fdisk -l from some Linux so we can see what you actually have to work with.

#13

For sure windows doesn’t give the proper view of partitions.

But if you have Fedora already installed, like please_try_again noted, use the same partitions to install openSUSE. It’ll be easier like that.

If you can, post you’re fdisk -l command from fedora.

#14

i have deleted fedora friends and currently this is my disk layout…

http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/5371/layouto.jpg

I want to know will this free space be used during installation…:expressionless:

#15

Use parted magic to create 2 logical partitions in that free space

1 swap of 2GB
2 All the rest as ext4 (23GB or thereabouts)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10573557/pmagic-4.5.iso

Using Parted Magic an Introduction

Once you have the partitions
Just point the openSUSE installer to use them.

#16

ok … Thank you very much…:slight_smile:

#17

Also just because Windows says it is free it may not be because if you have Fedora installed where is it?? I’d guess that it is in that 27 gig free space that Windows reports.

Windows does not show anything but Windows stuff. Please be sure to look at the space with a Linux distro of some kind before you jump into the deep end. During the install be sure that the partition scheme is correct before you commit to it.

#18

Windows would show at least ‘something’, not just free space … unless they recently found a new trick to neutralize other OS. My guess is that you removed that partition as you intended to replace Fedora with openSUSE. It wasn’t necessary. … or maybe YaST did (?) if you used any but the last option in the partitioner.

#19

Go get a liveUSB or liveCD of Gparted, boot on it and check carrefully what is your partitions scheme.

#20

Absolutely correct