I want to install 11.2 on the second HD as dual boot and leave the first (windows) completely alone. Including installing GRUB on /dev/sdb.
I did this with Ubuntu before and it worked fine. Didn’t even have to chnage bott order in BIOS or map the drives.
I just want verification of the setting before proceeding.
The text of the installation settings screen:
System
Processor: 2x Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.40GHz
Main Memory: 1 GB
Partitioning
Format partition /dev/sdb1 (111.63 GB) for / with ext3
Use /dev/sdb5 as swap
**Set mount point of /dev/sda1 to /windows/C**
Booting
Boot Loader Type: GRUB
Status Location: /dev/sdb
Change Location:
Boot from MBR is disabled (enable)
Boot from "/" partition is disabled (enable)
Sections:
+ openSUSE 11.2 (default)
+ Floppy
+ Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.2
Order of Hard Disks: /dev/sda, /dev/sdb
Keyboard Layout
English (US)
Time Zone
USA / Eastern (New York) - Hardware Clock Set To UTC 2009-11-16 - 19:25:34
Default Runlevel
5: Full multiuser with network and display manager
Also the line about the mounting of /dev/sda1 (in bold above) that’s just a config thing right and won’t do anything to my windows drive will it?
Looks fine to me - assuming that the ‘status location’ of grub of ‘/dev/sdb’ means it’s putting it on the MBR of SDB, which surely it must.
Even if it doesn’t, you can put it there manually afterwards.
The mount point for windows simply means that you’ll have your windows drive mounted when you boot linux - so you’ll be able to access your windows files. It’s easy enough to change it later if you change your mind.
One thing though - ext4 is considered safe for general use these days, and it is faster. There are reasons to prefer ext3, no doubt, but I’d say unless you have a very specific reason not to do so, go for ext4.
You got me wondering though if “Boot from MBR” should be enabled though. I assume with the current setup that would still be on /dev/sdb. When going into the boot loader menu I selected the option to create custom boot partition and unchecked Boot from MBR. Is there a better way to set that up?
And I think I’ll stick with EXT3 for now. There are still some reports of problems with large files, which I do work with occasionally.
If you put boot from MBR it will overwrite windows’ bootloader. Not that there’s anything wrong with that - you can still boot windows. But you seemed expressly to want to avoid changing that partition.
I’d put it on your SUSE root partition. I’m 95% sure it’ll work, 100% sure it won’t do any harm, and it’s easy to fix if it doesn’t boot.
Before when I went into the installer it the suggested partitioning was pretty much set up the way I wanted and all I had to do was change the bootloader install location.
Now however it wants to shrink (or delete it if I try with the windows drive mounted)the windows partition.
So far I cannot figure out how to get it to install on /dev/sdb at all.
I’ve tried both the edit setup and create partion setup options and just can’t seem to get it back where it was.
So basically how do I turn this:
Shrink Windows partition /dev/sda1 to 327.60 GB
Create extended partition /dev/sda2 (138.16 GB)
Create swap partition /dev/sda5 (2.01 GB)
Create root partition /dev/sda6 (20.00 GB) with ext4
Create partition /dev/sda7 (116.15 GB) for /home with ext4
Into this?:
Create swap partition /dev/sdb5 (2.01 GB)
Create root partition /dev/sdb2 (20.00 GB) with ext3
Create partition /dev/sdb1 (90.15 GB) for /home with ext3
That’s probably not correct, it’s just an example.
You need to pick the “custom” partition option during the install process (not either edit or create).
And re. your original post I would have thought install to mbr on sdb would be the way to go - that should leave sda alone (mbr referring to mbr on second hdd)…but I have been known to be wrong !
That would be great except there doesn’t seem to be a “custom partition” button.
Is that option not in the live installer, only the standard installer?
Or maybe I got it except for one little issue; /dev/sdb seems to be showing up as isw_badcigheic_Hard disk as a RAID volume. I was able to get this partition configuration, but I don’t think this is right. /dev/sdb is a SATA drive and /dev/sda is IDE if that matters.
Delete device mapper volume /dev/mapper/isw_badcigheic_Hard disk_part1 (114.49 GB)
Create extended raid partition isw_badcigheic_Hard disk_part1 (114.49 GB)
Create raid partition isw_badcigheic_Hard disk_part5 (70.60 MB) for /boot with ext4
Create swap raid partition isw_badcigheic_Hard disk_part6 (2.01 GB)
Create raid partition isw_badcigheic_Hard disk_part7 (20.00 GB) for / with ext4
Create raid partition isw_badcigheic_Hard disk_part8 (92.41 GB) for /home with ext4
Set mount point of /dev/sda1 to /windows/C
What’s really frying my noodle is that if I go into “edit” /dev/sdb shows up too.
I checked the BIOS and I’m positive that there is nothing left from the fakeRAID array I had set up until one of the drives developed bad sectors. From what I can tell there is no reason for sdb to show as RAID, except perhaps for shoddy SATA support. So what’s going on there?
Never mind, I fixed it. Turns out there may have been some sort of leftover from the fakeRAID on the disk itself. I went into the partioner and deleted the “RAID” partions and repartitioned /dev/sdb.
But the question still remains: Why did it show up normally the first time, but was all screwed up when it went back to actually do the install?
Hi, I’m new here.
I think the above thread answered my installation question but I just want to make sure.
I have 2 hard drives.
/dev/hda 200gb has windows 170gb and Ubuntu 20gb
/dev/hdb 500gb has windows 500gb which I’m using as my main system and I want to leave alone. When I installed windows on hdb I unplugged the old hard drive [/hda] so the 500gb /hdb is labelled windows C: and the old drive is now labelled windows F:
I want to replace Ubuntu on the old drive with Suse but the partitioner is telling me it wants to call the windows mount point there Windows /C
and on the other drive it will call the mount point of windows /D.
If I understood correctly this is only what Suse will call them and won’t affect how Windows itself calls them?
