Hi, for many years I have been battling with messed up partitions.
I am currently using Suse 11.1 with a Toshiba Equium laptop.
I have a reasonable sized hard drive, but am always out of space because a windows vista recovery disk created an unwanted blank partition- drive D. This caused a lot of problems to a new beginner.
So far I have the following messed up partitions:
/dev/sda1 1.46GB unknown NTFS Win RE
/dev/sda2 23.65GB HPFS/NTFS Vista /Windows/C
/dev/sda3 35.95GB Linux native Ext3 /local* (converted from drive D windows)
/dev/sda4 13.48 Extended
/dev/sda5 1.47GB Linux swap
/dev/sda6 5.32GB Linux native Ext3 /
/dev/sda7 6.67GB Linux native Ext3 /home
I am now running out of space on Windows C and my root partition ext3 /
I’ve tried using programs like G parted to swap the space between partitions but it doesn’t seem to work. I have to create a new partition table.
First, is it possible to rectify this without losing data? If I have to start again I don’t mind, but what partitions are needed to wipe the whole computer, install windows and then linux again? What is the best way to partition my computer? How can I get this resolved myself?
First off sda1 NTFS unknown is the recovery partition which is not needed if you have made the recovery DVD’s. If you haven’t made the recovery DVD’s and windows becomes damaged, the recovery will kick in and restore you (in most cases without warning) to a single huge c: formated NTFS and re-install the OS there ultimately erasing Linux.
If it were me I’d back-up all data you need from Linux_home, Linux_local Windows_C and any settings you need from /etc /usr / …
Then use a gparted CD to wipe/repartition space the way you want it, Re-install Windows to the C: drive you freshly defined, Then re-do Linux and maybe look at going 11.2. ALL in MHO
I cannot quite understand what the problem with the D: partition would be. You can mount NTFS as read-write in Suse you realize? It may be quite useful to have a common non-system or ‘work’ partition between Windows and Suse.
Hence, an alternative solution(?), which does not require very much trauma is to:
Back up any useful data on /dev/sda3 to an external drive,
Run Windows and in Disk Management reformat the /dev/sda3 partition to NTFS (which is going back a couple of steps I know) again,
Restore data to /dev/sda3,
Mount the /dev/sda3 partition as D: in Windows and as /local in Suse (using the type of ntfs-3g in /etc/fstab).
In other words I would have been more opportunistic when I discovered the ‘unwanted’ D: partition.
What plodder has suggested, has merit but… Windows Vista basically will require at least 22GB just for itself assuming you have shut off redundant restore points. Linux root of 5.3GB is quite shy as well in most scenario’s. This is also complicated by a small /home partition.
Personally, I would want Windows c: at about 25GB min with d: shared as NTFS with Linux and put Windows userdocs pointed there instead of the c:\User\documents.
This still leaves the root and home partitions of Linux lacking.
I’ve tried using programs like G parted to swap the space between partitions but it doesn’t seem to work.
You would delete sda3 and use gparted (from a live CD like Parted Magic)to manipulate the partitions to suit what you want.
But this involves changes to most of your partitions, So you should back up every thing you want, as you would if you were going to wipe the disk, just in case.
Can give you the partitioning procedure if you decide to go ahead, note you may also need to edit fstab and GRUB but that will depend and is not a major issue.
Where did you get this?
/dev/sda1 1.46GB unknown NTFS Win RE
/dev/sda2 23.65GB HPFS/NTFS Vista /Windows/C
/dev/sda3 35.95GB Linux native Ext3 /local* (converted from drive D windows)
/dev/sda4 13.48 Extended
/dev/sda5 1.47GB Linux swap
/dev/sda6 5.32GB Linux native Ext3 /
/dev/sda7 6.67GB Linux native Ext3 /home
To the OP, I should add, we can guide you through the process and explain it as we go.( as noted this is not an easy one, if you choose to, you could learn a fair bit from it!).
I am so grateful for your advice. This gives me a number of options and a sign of hope for getting this resolved.
An fdisk -l gives me the following details:
Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd63c992b
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 192 1536000 27 Unknown
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 192 3279 24796327 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 5036 9729 37699168+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 * 3279 5036 14115673 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 3279 3471 1539424 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 3471 4164 5574523+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 4165 5035 6996276 83 Linux
Partition table entries are not in disk order
What concerns me the most is the windows recovery disk. I don’t have a normal windows CD. When I formated the system last I had trouble getting this to work and had to send the laptop off to be restored. But I have a new recovery disk now which should work- Does this blank all the partitions into Drive C?
I think 25GB would be enough for Windows C. I do like idea of D drive being mounted in Linux for extra storage. This is great, if you have enough space on your main drives! Maybe at least 10 more GB each on /home and root partitions. I would never use ALL the GB that the hard disk offers, so I think that better management of partitions would do the trick.
P.S- I agreed there is a great learning experience here I can benefit from.
Yes, and I can also/burn version 11.2 to install as well.
You will note Partition 1 does not end on a cylinder boundary is a M$ technique to hopefully foul-up other OS’s.
What concerns me the most is the windows recovery disk. I don’t have a normal windows CD. When I formated the system last I had trouble getting this to work and had to send the laptop off to be restored. But I have a new recovery disk now which should work- Does this blank all the partitions into Drive C?
Yes the recovery disk feature of the hidden drive does restore the system to factory (single huge partition called C: plus 1 small hidden recovery partition, but OEM recovery disks may leave your partitions alone or recommend partition redo.)
I think 25GB would be enough for Windows C. I do like idea of D drive being mounted in Linux for extra storage. This is great, if you have enough space on your main drives! Maybe at least 10 more GB each on /home and root partitions. I would never use ALL the GB that the hard disk offers, so I think that better management of partitions would do the trick.
P.S- I agreed there is a great learning experience here I can benefit from.
Yes, and I can also/burn version 11.2 to install as well.
Ok so from what you said, I would do this
wipe whole drive (after back-up of all needed data)
** make sure you can read back the data too before wiping**
make a sda1 windose c: of 25GB NTFS
make a sda2 Extended partition of 55GB
make a sda5 Linux root of 15GB
make a sda6 Linux swap of 2GB
make a sda7 Linux home of 16GB
make a sda8 Windose d: of 22GB NTFS mounted as media/win_D in Linux
Install Windows into C:
Format Windows d: 22GB as NTFS
Install Linux as defined above
Hi, for many years I have been battling with messed up partitions.
This is the reason I suggest an attempted fix, in preference to wiping the drive etc. Master this and there is no more “battling with messed up partitions.” You will know how to make a lot of the basic partition changes often wanted.
With a full backup of what you want to keep, if you can’t get the partition changes right, you have lost nothing and can reinstall from scratch if needed.
I am slightly confused as my hard drive is only just under 75GB in all.
I am also unsure of the extended partition- why it is so high?
I have just read the G-Parted user manual.
Do you recommend creating just 2 primary partitions to begin with- Windows and Linux. And creating secondary partitions for each individual linux partitions? Drive D is currently a primary partition- should it be. Also why is there a gap between sda 2 and sda4?
You will also need a swap partition but that can be shared between Linuxes. Note if this is a notebook and you plan to use hibernate then you may need separate swap for each since Linux uses the swap to store the memory image.
You can also have one shared home partition or you can leave the /home directory on the root of each OS. This is completely optional and does introduce complications.
The partition table has 4 primary slots. Of these 2,3, & 4 can be set as extended. The extended partition is just a container for Logical drives (partitions) thereby enabling a system to have 3 primary and 15 Logicals per hdd. The numbering scheme of the partitions is 1 - 4 for the primaries and 5 - 19 Logicals. If hda2 is defined as extended it will show the sum total of the space defined for all the Logical drives and/or unallocated space it defines. So If you have hda5 of 50GB, hda6 of 30GB and hda7 of 19GB and hda2 is of type extended then it will be sized as 50+30+19 =~99GB
I would define the partitions as hda1=Windows, hda2=Extended, hda3 or hda6 = Linux, hda4 or hda7 = Linux swap, hda5 = Windows data sharable with Linux. Thusly, you would have
hda1,hda2,hda3,hda4,hda5 Windows/Extended/Linux/Swap/WShare or
hda1,hda2,hda5,hda6,hda7 Windows/Extended/Wshare/Linux/Swap
In the first case, hda2 is made large enough to hold planned hda5 and in the second case hda2 is made total hdd size - size reserved for Windows.
My comment above is not relevant if you are repartitioning from scratch.
Hi guys, thanks for your advice.
I am slightly confused as my hard drive is only just under 75GB in all.
I am also unsure of the extended partition- why it is so high?
I have just read the G-Parted user manual.
Do you recommend creating just 2 primary partitions to begin with- Windows and Linux. And creating secondary partitions for each individual linux partitions? Drive D is currently a primary partition- should it be. Also why is there a gap between sda 2 and sda4?
I also run multiple OS’s on an 80GB disk (openSUSE 11.2, 11.3M7 and Mandriva)
I have 1 partition for each OS and 1 /swap only. All works well.
I have tried a separate /home partition for each but managing free space proved to be a PITA in my situation.
I think the closest you will get to the ideal in a situation like this is to have a shared partition for the data in /home
As goglathorp has mentioned sharing /home itself causes complications because of the “hidden” configuration files in /home.
By the OP’s earlier comment about partition confusion, I would pose the gap is in the numbering sda1,2,4,5… where supposedly an sda3 might have existed then been deleted to expand sda2.
Hi
On my netbook I use a data partition and have folders for common
configuration data then just run a script to add softlinks on an
install. So I just have and extended partition with each version with
it’s own /boot and / and like you a common swap;
Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd65316e1
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1275 10241406 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 * 1276 12501 90172845 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda3 12502 30401 143781750 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 1276 1338 506016 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 1339 3950 20980858+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 3951 4013 506016 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 4014 6625 20980858+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 6626 6688 506016 83 Linux
/dev/sda10 6689 9300 20980858+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda11 9301 9363 506016 83 Linux
/dev/sda12 9364 11975 20980858+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda13 11976 12499 4208998+ 82 Linux swap /
Solaris
You could also script out adding you repositories etc as well