No. What I’m trying now is this:
I edited their suggested install and kept the EFI Boot at the beginning and then partitioned the rest as:
4GB Swap
25 GB Primary, Ext4 Mount=/
25 GB Primary, Ext4 (Not mounted)
206 GB Ext4 Mount=/home
205 GB Ext4 (Not Mounted)
So I just left out the extended partition. We’ll see how this goes. (Crossing fingers)
How come nobody told you to wipe out the first sector if not the first track if you have prealigned Windows garbage on this HD?
Did you output fdisk -l at some point to show us at least the sector size?
What do you expect from gparted? It’s user friendly but not reliable. I told you to use parted already.
Show us the number of sectors/track (with fdisk -l), then wipe out the first track. I won’t tell you how to do it until you post fdisk -l output.
No idea but after Parted Magic first gave me problems, I used it to “dd” the whole disk (with 0’s). Took about 1.5 hours.
No. If this install doesn’t work, I’ll try that. Can I do that from the Parted Magic CD?
Sure, but about 10 people all said Parted Magic was the way to go and that it was more reliable than other choices, so what do you expect me to do? I’m not an expert or sys admin.
Where do I get Parted from?
Since I “dd”'d the whole disk, I’m not sure what first track you’re referring to. Is there something I’m missing?
May I ask what you intend to do exactly? Rather than describing the problems, tell us what’s the expected result! Did you mention that Windows was preinstalled on this hard disk? Did it comes with a computer? Does this mainboard have an EFI/BIOS? Is it possible to disable EFI? And finally what do you want to install?
If you only want to install and use openSUSE, disable EFI in the BIOS, get rid of the EFI partition. AFAIK gparted can not handle gpt partitioning, the partitioning scheme used on EFI systems, and openSUSE’s Legacy Grub is not able to boot GPT partitions - again as far as I know - since it might have changed while I was asleep*.
If you want to use EFI, install Ubuntu (which can boot gpt) or even better Fedora16 (which will create a gpt partition by default on a blank hard disk).
If you want to use openSUSE on EFI, it will require more tricks. But if you disabled EFI in the BIOS and wiped out the disk, it should be OK, I guess.
It wasn’t necessary to dd the whole disk, but if you did, it also wiped out the first track. So it should be OK. But you should disable EFI now (I think … logically). Is it possible?
To have a properly working, fully installed openSUSE 12.1 KDE.
Yes. Yes. (I mentioned in a previous long thread) I then used (from people’s recommendations on this forum) Parted Magic GParted to delete and reformat the entire HDD.
Yes it seems to have EFI since in the BIOS it says “EFI Device Priority” I’m not sure how to disable it or if it is possible.
OpenSUSE 12.1 KDE (I also wanted Gnome on there, but at this point I’ll be ecstatic with just KDE)
Wow. I had no idea! Why wouldn’t openSUSE 12.1 be able to handle this or at least tell me it cannot?!
I could, but I really prefer openSUSE. Any idea if there’s a way to install Fedora and then openSUSE but use Fedora’s GRUB/partitioning?
Hmmm, this doesn’t sound too good. When you say “OK, I guess,” is that because you think there might still be issues?
I don’t see any way to disable EFI. I looked through all the different sections in the BIOS and nothing had an option to change EFI.
The only possible thing is it lists the CD/DVD twice, once as “EFI: ATAPI CD/DVD ROM” and “CD&DVD: ATAPI CD/DVD…” I suppose I could try the second option?
openSUSE can handle this because Linux can handle this. But openSUSE can not boot this because it still uses an older version of Grub (Legacy Grub) and this is why you were not able to install the boot loader in your other thread. (no need for 2 thread, really).
Yes. Just install Fedora and create one or more partitions where you will install openSUSE later. You could also use Ubuntu. I don’t know if the installation of openSUSE Grub in the root partition will fail … but I’m willing to learn from your experience. Anyway you should be able to boot openSUSE kernel from Fedora’s or ubuntu’s Grub.
Yes, if you don’t disable EFI in the BIOS and you don’t have an EFI partition (because you just wiped out the disk).
OK, thank you so much for helping me with this! So, to be sure my steps are:
Maybe it’s not in the boot priority section, or maybe it’s not possible. I have no idea. You should google the model of your mainboard + EFI + Linux, for example. If you can not disable EFI, you won’t be able to install openSUSE, I guess - and I say “I guess” because I never tried myself.
OK, thank you so much for helping me with this! I think since I’m far from an expert, I’ll refrain from trying to do openSUSE with EFI.
So, to be sure my steps are:
All right. First off, I haven’t still gotten around to installing Fedora 16. I have a couple machines running Fedora 15. Hmmm … Actually, I might have installed Fedora16 in a virtual machine… I’ll have to check. Fedora 16 is different because it uses Grub2, that you need to boot GPT - unlike Fedora 15 and openSUSE. Ubuntu has been using Grub2 for years.
The answer is yes, according to CT’ magazine 25/2011, page 80:
Zum Einstellen des Plattenplatzes legt das Installationsprogramm von Verne auf leeren Datenträgern nun eine GPT (GUID Partition Table) an, selbst wenn die Hardware die installierten Betriebsysteme ohne UEFI (Unified Extensibke Firmware Interface) startet; bei bereits mit einem MBR (Master Boot Record) versehenen Datenträgern verläuft die Partitionierung wie gewohnt.
When partitoning the hard disk, the Verne installer now creates a GPT (GUID Partition Table) on any empty disk, even if the hardware does not start the operating system using UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface). If the hard disk already contains a MBR (Master Boot Record), the partitoning proceeds in the traditional way*.
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=63
Create all the partitions in Fedora setup. You’ll need /home and / for openSUSE. You will share swap.
I’ll explain that later.
Thanks again!
OK, since the only thing I have that has that capability is my Parted Magic CD, I’ll do that via Parted Magic (as I did before)
I actually decided to go with Ubuntu after looking over 11.10 online (I hadn’t seen it in a while) Sorry, but does that change any of your recommendations?
I’ll let you know when the “dd” is done. Last time it took almost 1.5 hours, will you still be online then?
**EDIT: AGGGHHH! Now it cannot even load Parted Magic (or the Ubuntu CD either)!! Both just hang at “Loading file initrd-3.1.0-1.2-desktop…done”
EDIT2: I got it to load it by putting CD/DVD first, but that’s because somehow something changed in the BIOS (even though I never saved any changes there). Previously it had an EFI option for the CD/DVD rom but no longer! Now it only has it for the HDD.**
No. I think the difference is that Fedora creates a GPT partition on a blank hard disk, even on a non uEFI system. If you have an ATI card, you should definitely go for Ubuntu, because Unity might work with the proprietary driver, while Gnome-shell in Fedora (and openSUSE btw) probably won’t.
You’re just wiping out 63 sectors. It will take a couple seconds.
No matter which Linux you install, you should always select what looks at a first glance like the most complicated option, in order to create the partitions manually (because you’re going to install 2 OSes). It is called:
It’s an AMD Radeon™ HD6410D. I hope Ubuntu works with it or it’s back to the drawing board again. 
Oh, when I try it with from Parted Magic, it dd’s the whole disk. So it’s in the middle of that right now. Is it safe to stop it since it’s 30% done?
KDE will work. So maybe you should install Kubuntu. I think Gnome might work since it uses Unity by default and not Gnome-shell. Fedora/Gnome and openSUSE/Gnome won’t work, at least not in Gnome-shell with the ATI driver.
You didn’t use that command:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=63
No, sorry. I misread and thought it was the same command that was in Parted Magic’s erase disk. Can I just stop it?
Probably … unless partedMagic caches the whole process before you press “apply”. lol!
But use this command … just in case:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=63
It is sda, right?
It’s the same method as when installing on a Mac except for the rEFIt part, that you should ignore.
Look at the 4 pictures in this post: http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/install-boot-login/469635-err-message-no-boot-device-found-2.html#post2419446
It will install Grub in openSUSE’s root partition and leave the MBR untouched (won’t install Grub nor generic boot code). That’s what you need.
yes. And it says it’ll be done in 8 minutes so I’ll just wait.
So then, I assume I can just boot up the Ubuntu Install CD and install off that?
Any particular partitions you recommend for this? Or just use what they recommend?