After partitioned a new a new hard disk with Window’s tool openSUSE 12.2 RC2 show me the “not readable disk” message that I assume it’s because of the partition table that Windows have made. I have a C and D NTFS partitions where D have been created from C using windows tool.
Now my questions:
If I remove “D” in windows, would openSUSE let me resize again the entire partition (letter C)?
Can I change my current partitions using another partitioning tool like GParted or Parted Magic?
What would you recommend?
By the way I have been trying to boot up with a live GParted/Parted Magic on USB stick with no success. My laptop is a HP pavilion dv6-6185. The USB live run on other laptops but not with mine. Boot option in BIOS is well set.
On 2012-08-06 15:16, faco84 wrote:
>
> Hi folks,
>
> After partitioned a new a new hard disk with Window’s tool openSUSE
> 12.2 RC2 show me the “not readable disk” message that I assume it’s
> because of the partition table that Windows have made. I have a C and D
> NTFS partitions where D have been created from C using windows tool.
>
> Now my questions:
Question first.
Paste here the output of “fdisk -l” from a Linux live system. Use code tags.
One quick question. Where did you load the grub boot loader? It can be in the 1) MBR or in the 2) root partition, also marked active for booting. However, there is a third possibility, it can be located in an 3) Extended Partition which is then marked active. This last choice has been said to not work properly with the Windows partitioning program. Since you can NOT use openSUSE to create NTFS partitions, they should be created before you install openSUSE or make sure you do not use option 3 above for the grub boot loader location.
I can say that if Windows still boots, determine which partitions are required and delete the rest and reinstall openSUSE. A partition with type 42 is said to stand for a Secure File System, but most then say its really a Windows Dynamic Partition, as opposed to a Basic one which is not fully supported by Linux, as I understand it. At worst, the partition table is bad, but if Windows boots, perhaps it is dynamic and you might be able to recover something, but if it was me, I throw in the towel and start over on this hard disk. Complete all tasks with Windows and disk partitions before your reinstall openSUSE is my recommendation.
Basic disks use normal partition tables supported by MS-DOS and all Windows versions. A basic disk contains basic volumes, such as primary partitions, extended partitions, and logical drives. If you have any volume sets, stripe sets, mirror sets, or stripe sets with parity, you must back them up and delete or convert them to dynamic disks before you install Windows XP Professional. A basic or dynamic disk can contain any combination of FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS partitions or volumes. The disadvantage of a basic disk is that you are limited to creating only four primary partitions per disk or three primary partitions and one extended partition with logical drives. Windows NT based systems can support striping and software RAID sets for basic disks but Windows 2000/XP/2003 do not.
Dynamic disks are supported in Windows XP Professional, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. Dynamic disks do not use partitions or logical drives. Dynamic disks were first introduced with Windows 2000. With dynamic disks you can create volumes that span multiple disks such as spanned and striped volumes, and you can also create fault tolerant volumes such as mirrored volumes and RAID 5 volumes. Dynamic disks offer greater flexibility for volume management because they use a database to track information about dynamic volumes on the disk and about other dynamic disks in the computer. Windows Server 2003 can repair a corrupted database on one dynamic disk by using the database on another dynamic disk. With dynamic storage, you can perform disk and volume management without restarting Windows.
Dynamic disks are not supported on laptop computers or on computers with Windows XP Home Edition installed. The number of volumes that you can create on a dynamic hard disk is only limited by the amount of free space available. Windows XP Pro, Home or 64 Bit Edition does not support mirrored or RAID5 volumes. [LEFT]
Read more: What is the difference between basic disk and dynamic disk
[/LEFT]
I was thinking in to start again from scratch creating a new partitions table but as this is a brand new laptop I just tried to don’t touch too much. Anyway, my production OS is openSUSE and so I will go for that.
By the way, should I keep the recovery partitions??? Maybe it’s needed for guarantee.
I am coming late to this thread and did not read everything. So simply ignore me when I tell something that is allready told or is contrary to what is proven here.
I saw an* fdisk -l* listing where four (4) primary partitions together are using the whole space of the disk. It is not realy possible to install openSUSE on such a disk. There is simply no space left. Thus when you realy need those partitions you have a problem. When you do not need one or more of them, delete them. Then the installer will see free space and try to use it.
Starting over sounds like a good idea. If a recovery partition is hidden, it surely can be left. If the recovery partition is not hidden and you only need three primary partitions, again its OK. If you feel there is a chance you will want to use the restore partition, its OK to leave it there for sure. If it s damaged or Windows is not in your future, then get rid of it. In the end, its hard for me to answer that questions for you. If I thought the restore partition was still good, I most likely will leave it alone and unmodified.
On 2012-08-09 00:46, jdmcdaniel3 wrote:
>
> faco84;2478959 Wrote:
>> I was thinking in to start again from scratch creating a new partitions
>> table but as this is a brand new laptop I just tried to don’t touch too
>> much. Anyway, my production OS is openSUSE and so I will go for that.
>>
>> By the way, should I keep the recovery_partitions??? Maybe it’s
>> needed for guarantee.
> Starting over sounds like a good idea. If a recovery partition is
> hidden, it surely can be left. If the recovery partition is not hidden
> and you only need three primary partitions, again its OK. If you feel
> there is a chance you will want to use the restore partition, its OK to
> leave it there for sure. If it s damaged or Windows is not in your
> future, then get rid of it. In the end, its hard for me to answer that
> questions for you. If I thought the restore partition was still good, I
> most likely will leave it alone and unmodified.
I think that when there are dynamic Windows disks you have to erase and repartition the entire disk
from scratch with plain partitioning, and this is of course an extra problem if you have Windows
preinstalled, because they don’t give you a real Windows install DVD.
I don’t know if it is possible to image the “partitions” and recreate them as plain NTFS. Perhaps
there is a tool to convert from “Dynamic” to “Basic”, possibly payware.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 “Asparagus” GM (bombadillo))
This is what I was afraid of.
I have found some tools to convert partitions from dynamic to basic. I think this is what I will try in order to modify C and D partitions leaving recovery as basic file system partition. (Fingers crossed).
Finally I have successfully changed my entire disk to basic starting all again from scratch with a new partitions table (you have to delete your volumes in order to change the disk type).
Although I had to delete the RECOVERY and HP_TOOLS partitions, a recovery image can be done now.
So asking someone to start over is not the advice you want to give out. None the less, I am happy to hear you are back up and working and perhaps a little smarter for it.
You are right. In fact I didn’t search about how to install Linux on dynamic disk partitions, on which I’m not sure if it is actually possible by the way.
However, people could be advised of this on before buying a new laptop. This is the first time I have to deal with dynamic disks.
After my very first time of converting to a basic NTFS partition to a Dynamic disk, all I got was a headache from the experience and no reward I could detect. It is a lesson we may all get to learn if we insist on mixing Windows and Linux together.
> You are right. In fact I didn’t search about how to install Linux on
> dynamic disk partitions, on which I’m not sure if it is actually
> possible by the way.
Everybody I asked said that it is not possible. I don’t even know if it is possible to
read/write those partitions from Linux, booted from a live CD. I don’t have a spare machine in
which to experiment with this…
> However, people could be advised of this on before buying a new laptop.
> This is the first time I have to deal with dynamic disks.
HA! Do you think that you would get any advice from vendors regarding installing Linux of their
machines? You gotta be dreaming…
Even with vendors that do sell machines with Linux installed you find combinations in the
Windows machines that are a big pain when you want to install Linux in them. From example: HP
and all 4 primary partitions in use. Even installing a second Windows is a pain.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
Haha I know it is more something that I would love to see on product specifications. Actually the fact that I didn’t know anything about dynamics disk before buying my new laptop was my bad move. I mean never expected something like that :shame:.
Does someone know if Dell or ASUS are selling their machines with dynamic disks also??
> Haha I know it is more something that I would love to see on product
> specifications. Actually the fact that I didn’t know anything about
> dynamics disk before buying my new laptop was my bad move. I mean never
> expected something like that :shame:.
I always expect something new when I buy a Windows product after some time. They are not
morons, they develop constantly.
> Does someone know if Dell or ASUS are selling their machines with
> dynamic disks also??
Dynamic disks are not a bad thing. It is a useful feature. Consider the situation reversed: you
install first Linux over LVM, and then attempt to install Windows, or something else: you
can’t. LVM is the equivalent of dynamic disks in the Linux world. They have their solution, we
have our solution, and both do their job adequately. And both are incompatible, that’s the problem.
From the point of view of users, both Linux and Windows should collaborate and design a common
method. Ha!
Or, some Linux devs might reverse engineer the dynamic disk system and learn to use it.
Meanwhile, you have to reinstall plain.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)