new install alongside Win7

English Install/Boot/Login
1

wanting to instal Opensuse alongside Win7 on new Thinkpad SL510
As per the instructions in this thread here are the screenshots of my current partitions

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/1589/screenshot1bm.th.png](http://img5.imageshack.us/i/screenshot1bm.png/)

&
http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/4830/screenshot2z.th.png](http://img577.imageshack.us/i/screenshot2z.png/)

sda2 is obviously the windows partition that could be shrunk
sda3 is the recovery partition that I can delete as I have recovery discs.
Not entirely sure what sda1 is

What should I do from here?
Use pmagic to delete sda3 and reduce sda2
Don’t need a lot of extra space for win7 as probably wont use it a lot. would around 25 GB be sufficient for win7?
sda1? leave untouched? Delete?

2

oh - should I be concerned at all by the “boot” flag against sda1?

3

sda2 is obviously the windows partition that could be shrunk
sda3 is the recovery partition that I can delete as I have recovery discs.
Not entirely sure what sda1 is

What should I do from here?

Use pmagic to delete sda3 and reduce sda2
What you are suggesting looks good to me.

sda1? leave untouched? Delete?
Leave sda1 untouched, It’s your win7 boot partition.

4

I suspect both sda1 and sda2 are Windows 7 partitions; your problem is that sda3 is very small for openSUSE. You can install a smallish distro, say in 5G with 3G for /home. If possible, I would ask Windows to shrink sda2 first and then use the space created on sd2 plus sda3 for openSUSE.

5

so the space I create for opensuse should be primary or extended?
Should I move the boot flag to the Opensuse (extended) partition or leave where is?

6

so the space I create for opensuse should be primary or extended?
Create an extended partition, put your linux (logical) partitions inside it.

Should I move the boot flag to the Opensuse (extended) partition or leave where is?
I leave it where it is and only change if needed.

7

thanks.
I’ll give it a try and see how I go.

8

If you have not yet deleted or resized the three partitions, consider the following:

You stated that you have recovery discs. That is very good, as many folks do not bother to create or acquire such. However, the Lenovo recovery partition is 1) relatively small (~ 10 GB), 2) at the end of the drive and 3) (IMO) a good thing to keep around until you have completed the sda2 resize and openSUSE installation.

I would suggest that you keep sda3 (the recovery partition) for now, and resize sda2 down by ~ 50%. The 50% is due to Windows 7 placing an “invisible” file in the middle of your drive. GParted does not care about that, and I do not believe Parted Magic cares either. If you are not planning on a lot of Windows activity, 100GB is more than enough, and you can resize later.

Next, create an extended partition between the resized sda2 and the recovery partition. The openSUSE installer can allocte your swap, / (root) and /home within that extended partition.

These are just my thoughts, as I did almost the same procedure on my Gateway NV79, on a 500GB HD.

9

I like this scheme but I will take more from windows partition :smiley:

10

That is always a choice. I mentioned that the Windows partition could be resized at a later time. I have found that it is generally easier to shrink a Windows partition (and expand the adjacent extended partition) than to shrink an extended partition to expand Windows.