Hey guys I am fairly new with this so bare with me.
I just recently built a new computer (1st build) and installed Suse 11.2 as a fresh install on a brand new 500 GB hard drive.
Everything is up and running fine.
I am wanting to make it a dual boot machine by adding XP, but when I go to use the partitioner it won’t let me resize my partitions to make space for XP.
It is currently set up with:
2 GB Swap
20 GB /
The rest is /home
I go to resize the /home partition down to make room for an XP partition & it says it can’t do it, I need to unmount the drive.
I unmount that partition & it throws me an error not letting me resize.
If you are wanting to install XP - post linux install, it’s possible but probably a little complicated for a new user But I suspect you already have 3 primary partitions, but let’s make sure
On 02/19/2010 01:26 AM, ProphetMB wrote:
>
> Hey guys I am fairly new with this so bare with me.
>
> I just recently built a new computer (1st build) and installed Suse
> 11.2 as a fresh install on a brand new 500 GB hard drive.
> Everything is up and running fine.
> I am wanting to make it a dual boot machine by adding XP, but when I go
> to use the partitioner it won’t let me resize my partitions to make
> space for XP.
>
> It is currently set up with:
> 2 GB Swap
> 20 GB /
> The rest is /home
>
> I go to resize the /home partition down to make room for an XP
> partition & it says it can’t do it, I need to unmount the drive.
> I unmount that partition & it throws me an error not letting me
> resize.
>
> What do I need to do to get this working?
>
> Thanks for your help
>
>
If you’ve just installed Suse 11.2 then really the safest way for you do
dual boot now, would be to install Win XP on the 500GB wiping out your
new Suse 11.2. After you install WinXP then install Suse 11.2 again on
the free partitions.
Generally,
!. Use the Suse partitioner to delete the existing partitions and reboot.
Resize the drive for dual boot, Windows and Linux
Windows installation requires the 1st partition or 2.
/dev/sda1 WindowsXP
/dev/sda2 HPFS/NTFS
I find 3 extended partitions more than enough to install a dual, but
some people install 3-4 OSs.
/dev/sda3 / ( root ) <== separate / ( root ) partition from home
/dev/sda4 /boot
/dev/sda5 /swap
/dev/sda6 /home
Install Suse 11.2, and it will recognize the Windows installation
and use Grub to manage your OS boot sequence for you.
A separated /root partition which contains all your /bin /sbin /usr /tmp
/var folders from a /home partition will give you the flexibility to do
clean installs to / (root) without losing data in the /home. Of cousre,
some applications like Apache, MySQL keep their data in the / (root) so
you’d need to back those up before any clean installs.
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 262 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2 * 263 2873 20972857+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 2874 60801 465306660 83 Linux
As for it being complicated…I think I can handle it. I am not a complete newbie…just wading out into the water with Linux further than I have previously and I like to cover the bases with knowledge before I actually do anything.
To be honest you need to backup important data, format the whole drive.
There is a roundabout way of not having to do this but it’s long winded. If you haven’t got a way of backing up, then I’ll explain but basically you want it something like this
This is my setup, others may do it slightly differently
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 20673 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x93900d8b
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 9017 68163763+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 9017 11235 16771829 83 Linux (root)
/dev/sda3 11235 20674 71352666+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 11235 11651 3140676 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 11651 20674 68211958+ 83 Linux (/home)
I was hoping to not have to re-format. As powerful & flexible as linux is…to not be able to start with it & then be able to add an XP partition is a letdown.
You can you just need to shrink the home partition at install time. You can not shrink a mounted partition and you need the home partition to be mounted to run. So you really cannot shrink it from Yast on a running system. It is like lifting the rug while you stand on it. If you booted from a CD then you could shrink it since it would not be mounted
But really the problem is that Windows likes to be first in line. And when you install XP it will over write the MBR ( grub) and will only boot into XP and then you need to fix grub to dual boot. So it is just plan simpler to bow to the MS gods and install it first then let Linux fix things on it’s install.