I have a laptop with opensuse 11.3 already installed, i want to install now windows xp.
i don’t want to lose my data and also i heard grub boot-loader/boot-editor should be installed.
Please anyone let me know what all things to be done step by step.
and my Hard disk details are as below
root:~ # fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000080
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 6527 52426752 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 6527 39162 262140928 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 39162 40206 8385536 82 Linux swap / Solaris
I am running without problems XP as virtualized system in Vbox. KVM virtualization should also be a good alternative. If you need usb to be active you can install the vboxversion of Oracle (handles usb devices well). You may clone the partition an “throw away” a clone in case of trouble. Are you sure you really need a dualboot under these conditions? (Not to change your mind, just to show the alternative)
I have tried using xp installing vbox on the same laptop, i din’t like it though.
and also i was facing problems with internet connection.
Later i decided to make it a dual boot.
I have installed windows and suse11.3 and made a dual boot on my desktop, at that time i installed windows first and later on opensuse11.3 and all is working fine.
But the problem now is i am installing windows when opensuse 11.3 already installed. I am afraid i’ll lose my data or so on.
To do this, I really would suggest you start again.
But I see /home is pretty full. So it begs the questions:
1.Do you have an external HD to backup to?
2. If you already have so much space in use, just how much do feel you can dedicate to the now antiquated XP?
Starting again will allow you to put XP on sda1
But you’ll need to redo the partitioning completely IMO
As I do not know much about Windos XP, let alone how to install it, I did not answer until now. And I still hope for you that somebody comes here to tell you a trick.
But some of the ideas that come to my mind reading your post are:
What do you mean with “my data”? When you mean your pictures, music, documents, etc. in your home directory, my advice would be: copy them down to some removable storage devivce with a Windows compatible file system (like FAT or NTFS) on it. You can then restore them to any Windows system. Even when you succeed in installing a Windows system multi boot with your openSUSE, your Windows system will not be able to read the Linux ext4 fs you have them on now.
For your Windows XP you need disk space, but you fail to show the partitioning of your disk(s), thus nobody can give you any advice on where to put XP.
Connecetd to this is that I doubt that you can install XP on a system that has allready has a system on e.g. sda1. Remember that the Linux installation procedures are full of knowledge and handling capability of creating a double boot Linux when there is allready a Windows OS. But I hope it is not a surprise to you that Windows does have none of those considerations in respect to any non Windows OS.
My conclusion: backup you user data, backup your /etc (thus you can restore easily much of the system configurations you use now to a new install, install XP (it will destry openSUSE and when possible leaving space for Linux). Install openSUSE anew.
In fact my condolesences to you having decided that you want to use Windows.
XP has to be (obligatorily) installed on the first partition of your first master harddisk (do not forget it is over 10 years old technology). You need therefore to change the partition asset. After this, you may wish to restore the grub boot manager. I have to admit that I do not know the command to restore the bootmanager grub of OpenSUSE. However you should do a backup of your /home data first. You can copy your entire home on an external hardddisk with ease from the command line.
open a terminal and write:
su -
init 1
mkdir /mnt/temp
I suppose now your external harddisk is called /dev/sdb1 and is empty. Then this continues with mounting the volume of the external harddisk /dev/sdb (that is sdb1) as directory temp in /mnt/temp so that it becomes accessible. That is:
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/temp
Now you copy everything over (you clone your /home on the external disk. You wish to conserve the attributes and ownerships.
cp -ax /home/ /mnt/temp
This will take a while and when the prompt comes back on the terminal you may check from the gui if everything went well. To do so you emit:
init 5
you wait that the system has loaded and do nothing, it will bring you to the login promt of KDM automatically. You can login as normal user and check with dolphin if you are satisfied and the files are present. Once done, you may close dolphin, open a terminal and
umount /mnt/temp
To get your data back in case of need you may just invert direction. The rest of the procedure will be identical.
alternatively there is a backup program called lucky backup in your repos that makes use of rsync and is maybe easier to use. If you feel comfortable to use rsync from the command line, you can do your backup of course also like this.
Once done the backup you try this linux live CD called parted magic to alter your partitions. This requires that you are aware and you are understanding what a partition is and what partitioning is. Remember that for a typical minimal install of XP you need 10 GB if you install a lot of software it is quite more (up to 20).
Then somebody here hopefully will tell you how to restore grub - once this was done with the install DVD but they took that off. (For whatever reason, probably the answer is 43).
Good luck. And don’t do anything before having done a sound backup of everything.
On 11/04/2011 03:56 PM, vrnb05 wrote:
> I have tried using xp installing vbox on the same laptop, i din’t like
> it though.
> and also i was facing problems with internet connection.
i think from all the other answers you may have decided that going from
a functioning 11.3 to a dual boot with XP is going to be a lot of work and consume a good portion of your ‘only’ 31GB free drive space (what
does XP and whatever you need to run, use?)…
perhaps you would be better to work though the issues which didn’t work
for you when you tried to run XP in a VM…i’ve never done it
(thankfully i have no need for XP or any other MS product, but if you do
then) but i know many do run it with no more problems than occur if it
runs on bare metal (it will still be a 10 year old system, easy to
crack and infect, etc)…
maybe you didn’t choose the best combo of VM and your hardware…how
much RAM do you have? and, which VM did you try?
one last thought: if you do decide to start over by putting XP on the
first partition, you might want to consider installing 11.4 instead of
11.3 which goes end of life in 72 days…
And to finish, there are a page of openSUSE and a thread here in the forum giving good indications on how to do restore the bootmanager after a Windows install: Support data base on Grub
and this Thread about repairing grub in 11.3
Now you should have all the info you need. PLEASE do backup your data before proceeding.
Regards.
On 2011-11-05 07:06, DenverD wrote:
> perhaps you would be better to work though the issues which didn’t work for
> you when you tried to run XP in a VM…i’ve never done it (thankfully i
> have no need for XP or any other MS product, but if you do then) but i know
> many do run it with no more problems than occur if it runs on bare metal
> (it will still be a 10 year old system, easy to crack and infect, etc)…
I do use that method, and there are problems. For example, my TomTom
navigator is not recognized there, XP does not see it in VM Player. It
worked previously in VM Server. I have to use real hardware for it.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
Just to ask, did you ever try KVM? Wonder whether it passes through the USB calls. I did install on my 11.1 the Oracle version of Vbox and it handles USB. But I would like to know if I can eliminate VBOX and substitute it with KVM. But then I will have to through away all my virtualized XP images I guess.
Actually i am installing windows to do hardware testing with the help of customer support where i have a DELL laptop and DELL support team supports
only for windows but not the LINUX.
i tried virtual box installin through yast updating repos.
and
steps to follow is:
1.To take backup of my data.
2.To edit /boot/grub/menu.lst file and add 3 lines mentioning windows.
3.To install windows.
4.To boot from live cd and update grub and /boot/grub/menu.lst file.
Well, always said and understood that you do the backup preferably on an external hdd (so you are sure that you don’t overwrite it by chance).
Please be careful on typos when editing menu.lst.
Good luck.
On 11/09/2011 02:56 PM, vrnb05 wrote:
> i tried virtual box installin through yast updating repos.
> and
>
> root:~ # free -m
> total used free shared buffers
> cached
> Mem: 3761 3723 37 0 20
> 2025
> -/+ buffers/cache: 1677 2084
> Swap: 8188 681 7507
>
that should easily be enough RAM to run XP in VBox in your 11.3, perhaps
you just need to work harder on getting it set up right…i’d start a
new thread describing what is wrong with your VBox with XP installed,
and find a solution for that…and then DONE
BUT: what is your supposed hardware problem?? i say supposed because it
may not be a hardware problem…the hardware may be perfect when used
with the operating system which came factory installed…
what operating system was that?
perhaps you simply need to address the “hardware” problem you have when
running openSUSE! have you checked the hardware compatibility list to
see if any others are having the same problem with the same hardware??
> yes sure i will update to 12.1 which is releasing after 1 week. .
On 2011-11-09 16:34, DenverD wrote:
> but be careful, because you can’t ‘upgrade’ from 11.3 to 12.1, see
> http://tinyurl.com/35p966c
> http://tinyurl.com/6kvoflv
>
> you can upgrade from 11.3 to 11.4, and from 11.4 to 12.1…
With the DVD upgrade method, yes, you can. With the live upgrade method you
can not. That is, you may, but it is not supported.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
On 2011-11-09 14:56, vrnb05 wrote:
> Actually i am installing windows to do hardware testing with the help
> of customer support where i have a DELL laptop and DELL support team
> supports only for windows but not the LINUX.
Then virtualization is not for you.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
