I have a Core2quad desktop with 8Gb of RAM and two 500 Gb hard drives. I’ve got Windows 7 64-bit installed on one drive, the other one’s empty.
If I install OpenSuse on the second drive, will it detect my Windows 7 install and give me a dual-boot option ?
Anybody ? I’m a linux newbie, so help is appreciated :shame:
Yes, it should.
If Windows doesn’t show up immediately after the openSUSE installation, try to install all updates. (YaST->Online Updates)
There was a bug in that it couldn’t find a Windows installation under certain circumstances, but this has been fixed in January.
Thx ! I’ll give that a try tonight.
Apparently, for other distros (Ubuntu based), it’s not that simple. Been doing some reading and apparently, it involves disconnecting the drive with the Windows install, install linux on other drive, reconnect the windows drive, and then modify GRUB… yikes.
Well, I setup a new computer with Windows 7 and openSUSE 13.1 just yesterday (but that had only 1 hard disk).
First I installed Windows 7, then openSUSE.
I didn’t have to do anything manually, the openSUSE installer automatically used the free space on the hard disk, and the Windows 7 loader was automatically added to the boot menu.
And most importantly, both OSes booted up just fine afterwards…
In your case with 2 hard disk you should check if openSUSE wants to install to the correct drive and might have to change the installer’s proposal, but if the second hard disk is empty it should be preferred to be used instead of resizing the Windows partition I think.
Just to make certain you are installing to the correct drive and partitions, here are my suggestions:
When you get to this screen:
http://www.fraser-bell.ca/tech/linux/installsuse/screenshots/install-003.png
Clear all checkmarks, the only mark should be for “New Installation”.
I recommend as a novice that you keep the default KDE desktop, at least for now.
When you get to this screen:
http://www.fraser-bell.ca/tech/linux/installsuse/screenshots/install-012.png
Make certain the only checkmark is in Propose Separate Home Partition, then click on Create Partition Setup.
When you get to this screen:
http://www.fraser-bell.ca/tech/linux/installsuse/screenshots/install-013.png
Select Custom Partitioning (for experts). Do not let the “experts” warning scare you.
On the Expert Partitioner screen:
http://www.fraser-bell.ca/tech/linux/installsuse/screenshots/install-014b.png
click on “Hard Disks”. One drive will probably be labelled sda and the other will probably be labelled sdb. You should be able to tell which is your Windows drive, it will have NTFS partitions that you will probably recognize. Choose that drive first, slide the green slider over and look to make certain there are no entries under the “Mount” column for that drive.
If there are entries there, click on that line (the sdb1 or sdb2 or sdb? line that has the entry, or the sda? line, if that is your Linux drive).
You should then see a screen similar to this one:
http://www.fraser-bell.ca/tech/linux/installsuse/screenshots/install-027.png
Click on the Edit button, and on this screen:
http://www.fraser-bell.ca/tech/linux/installsuse/screenshots/install-028.png
make certain to select “Do not format partition” and “Do not mount partition”, then click Finish.
Back here:
http://www.fraser-bell.ca/tech/linux/installsuse/screenshots/install-029.png
select the drive you want to install openSUSE on, and make sure it has at least 3 partitions listed under the Mount column, as shown on this image. The 3 should be “/”, “/home”, and “swap”.
Don’t worry about the Labels you see in my image, not necessary for you to bother with at this point in time. Ignore the sizes you see in my image, as well. This is from a guide to help someone install to a small spare HD.
For your sizes, I recommend 40-Gig for / (which is the root partition), which should be far more than enough. I actually have a lot installed on my main personal machine, and I only take about 10-Gigs of the root partition up, lots of spare room for future installs.
Choose a larger size for /home (the rest of the drive minus 16-Gig, if you wish,) since this is where almost all your Data will be saved. Or, create an extra partition for extra data, or some other use, if you have one in mind.
The swap partition, in your case, could be 16-Gig, which probably would be far greater than you will ever need, but with your disk space, that can’t hurt.
If you run into problems during your install, come back here for more help. I hope you enjoy openSUSE as much as I do.
Wow, thanks !
So, how did you make out?
Haven’t had time yet, will try today and keep you posted…
On 2014-04-04 07:46, Fraser Bell wrote:
>
> DrMcKay;2634530 Wrote:
>> I have a Core2quad desktop with 8Gb of RAM and two 500 Gb hard drives.
>> I’ve got Windows 7 64-bit installed on one drive, the other one’s empty.
>> If I install OpenSuse on the second drive, will it detect my Windows 7
>> install and give me a dual-boot option ?
>
> Just to make certain you are installing to the correct drive and
> partitions, here are my suggestions:
I would suggest making sure that grub is intalled on the second disk
only, leaving the first disk (with Windows) intact. Then you have to
select the second disk in BIOS as the boot disk.
Installation on the second hard
disk - grub
Installation on the second hard
disk - grub - details
I’m not sure about what I show on the second photo: I think that the
disk order has to be changed, but I’m not sure if it is needed or not.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
Agreed. But, here is an easier, quicker way, and I have found it to be completely reliable.
When you get to this screen:
http://www.fraser-bell.ca/tech/linux/installsuse/screenshots/install-034.png
under the Booting section, on the line “Boot from MBR is enabled”, click on the green disable
On the line “Boot from “/” partition is disabled”, click on the green enable
It should now be set this way (see beside the orange arrow):
http://www.fraser-bell.ca/tech/linux/installsuse/screenshots/install-034b_arrow.png
Make sure you check that the root partition is flagged as BOOT or ACTIVE, though. I will show you how to do this at the very end of this message.
It is not necessary to do the following, since the simple steps above have taken care of it.
Installation on the second hard
disk - grub
Installation on the second hard
disk - grub - details
I’m not sure about what I show on the second photo: I think that the
disk order has to be changed, but I’m not sure if it is needed or not.
You are right about wondering, Carlos. Disk order does not need to be changed at all, and attempts to do that on any machines I have tried have been mostly unreliable, anyway.
Booting from the root partition is the best idea. This disk ordering probably is supposed to solve the problem of where Grub wants to install when installing to the MBR, but I have so far found it ignores disk ordering and so on. Instead, it seems to want to always install to the MBR of sda, no matter what I choose … at least, on all machines I have encountered so far.
If I insist I want it in MBR on the 2nd or 3rd drives, I have to do that from CLI once openSUSE is loaded.
Okay. **CHECKING YOUR BOOT PARTITION
**
During install, the system is going to want to reboot to the HD to complete some setup procedures.
This is the screen you will see just before it wants to reboot:
http://www.fraser-bell.ca/tech/linux/installsuse/screenshots/install-045.png
If the boot flag is not properly set, this will not work as expected.
So, when it starts rebooting, choose your BIOS to boot again from the install DVD.
But, do not click on Install.
Instead, 3rd item down should be “Rescue System”. Click on that and wait for it to load.
It will stop with the line
Rescue login:
Type (without the quotes) “root” then press Enter.
You will now see the prompt, probably in a red font:
Rescue:~#
Do
fdisk -l
This will list your drives and partitions. Double-check which is the drive that you installed on to make certain you will be using the right drive and right partition when you run commands on the disk. I will use sdb as the example, yours is probably going to be the same. But, if not, change it to sdc or whichever matches your drive with the new Linux installation.
/dev/sdb, If none of the partitions have the * under the Boot column, then no boot partition has been set.
The partition you chose as root ("/") is the one where you want the * in the Boot column. If it is anywhere else, or is not there, you will need to set it.
There will also be an asterisk (*) in the Boot column on your Windows drive. Leave that one as it is, do not bother to touch that drive.
I will proceed as if you want to set the first partition (sdb1) as the boot (or “Active”) partition (change the sdb1 to the correct one for your root partition in the following commands, if it is different).
Do:
parted
You will now have a prompt
(parted)
Do:
select /dev/sdb
You should get a confirmation message that the device is now selected.
Do:
set 1 boot
That is to set/reset the 1st partition’s boot flag.
It will prompt you with the line New state?
Do:
on
When it is confirmed, do:
quit
You will be back at the Rescue:~# prompt.
Do:
reboot
At this point, in the BIOS, choose to boot from the openSUSE hard drive.
Your install should now complete.
Keep in mind that some graphic cards and some other items do not automatically install. I you have one of those items, you might not be able to fully log in.
Don’t worry, that problem occurs now & then when installing, and it is usually quite easy to fix.
If you run into that problem, come back here, again.
Still haven’t had time to try it out, been very busy doing other stuff. But will keep you all posted on how it goes…
The guides I created in this thread are still getting viewed 3 or 4 times a day, sometimes more often than that in a day, according to the logs on my website.
So, I am bumping it up in the forum for newcomers to find easily.