Hello,
I recently built a new rig and wanted to make it dual boot with W7 & OS 11.2. I installed W7 and partitioned my drive with 30 gigs I anticipated using for the 11.2 install. OpenSuse will not recognize it or allow any changes to that hard drive, I do not find a similar problem searching the forums. Any advice would be appreciated, thanks in advance for any help.
What if you choose “expert option” to edit the disk partitions while installing oS11.2?
I tried that and when I try to make a change it gives an error, I should have wrote it down, basically what it said is that it could not change that drive. It is weird because it sees my 1TB back up drive and wants to install there, but when I disconnected it to force to the other drive it gives no partitioning options for install.
M13 wrote:
> it gives an error
the openSUSE you are trying to install, is it the same as in your sig?
is that a Live CD, or the DVD?
what is the source of your install disk? (software.opensuse.org/112/en
or other??)?
if you down loaded it, did you md5sum check it prior to burning? and
then do this http://tinyurl.com/yajm2aq before install attempt?
you say you partitioned your drive for 30 gigs for openSUSE…will
that have both W7 and openSUSE all on one hard drive…or is it
multiple drives and openSUSE on which drive? i ask because you wrote
“OpenSuse will not recognize it or allow any changes to that hard
drive”…“that drive” like maybe there are more than one…
if “that drive” is USB and was not ‘properly’ shut down by W7 it might
be locked to any use, by any non-Redmond system (i think, i don’t
really know a lot about their software)
if that is the case, then i think you need to use W7 to disconnect the
USB drive, shut down your machine, plug the drive back in, hit the
power button…and boot with your install media…then, MAYBE openSUSE
can see and use that drive…
otherwise: i’m tired of guessing what your ‘rig’ is like…i can tell
ya’ that thousands and thousands of folks have not had the problem you
describe…so, you have a unique situation (imo) either broken install
media, or a hardware problem…
–
palladium
Thank you for the response,my sig is from my previous PC but for the same OS. I was using the openSuse KDE Live iso on a DVD that will boot live and the media check says is valid. I did not however do a visual on the checksum, but will. I have 2 internal 1TB WD HD’s, one is partitioned 4 times for W7, (hopefully) OS 11.2, Games and Downloads/Music. The second HD is for backups and VMWare OS experimentation only, but that hard drive is where openSuse wants to go if allowed. With it disconnected openSuse will give no recommendation for installation/partitioning of the first HD. Thank you for any help.
Boot the DVD and choose system repair. When in the system do
fdisk -l
and post the output here so we can see what your partitioning is.
Ok I think I read you right but to confirm…
You used w7 to make/split a 1 TB drive into 4 partitions listed as
c: windows 7
d: empty for 11.2
e: empty for games
f: empty for downloads
Here’s the issues. To correctly make space available for Linux, under w7 you would delete the d: e: f: partitions. W7 may complain but ignore it.
What happens when you try to use windows to define partitions is you don’t have proper control. If windows defines them as virtual drives Linux can’t access them because they are actually still part of the main windows drive. If windows defines them as real partitions, it may also lay claim to them such that Linux won’t see them.
By deleting the drives or otherwise resizing the windows partition and going no farther, the partition table will indicate unallocated space which you can then use Linux to grab and partition. I am presuming you want the games and download partitions shared under windows so during the Linux partitioning you would make the partitions but not format them. After Linux is installed, go into w7 and grab/format the 2 partitions. W7 won’t see the Linux one.
M13 wrote:
> I have 2 internal 1TB WD HD’s, one is
> partitioned 4 times for W7, (hopefully) OS 11.2, Games and
> Downloads/Music. The second HD is for backups and VMWare OS
> experimentation only, but that hard drive is where openSuse wants to go
> if allowed. With it disconnected openSuse will give no recommendation
> for installation/partitioning of the first HD. Thank you for any help.
ok, you say you partitioned the first drive into four parts…there
are some rules about the max number of primary partitions on a single
drive…i’ve not looked at it in a LONG time, but i think the max is
(or used to be 3) so i guess someone else needs to try to help
you…mostly because i know so little about Redmond that i can’t tell
ya how you should have made four partitions and left a primary
partition for Linux which itself is going to want to take that 30G set
aside and make THREE partitions also:
/ (root)
/swap
/home
which i think may be why it won’t recommend trying to install to a
drive it can’t…hopefully, someone who knows how to get you out of
the corner you painted into, will …
–
palladium
Sorry to correct.
You can have up to** four** partitions (4, there is a 2-bit field to number them). They are called primary partitions.
When you want more partitions this can only be done by using 1 of the primary partitions (usualy the last one, not necessarily number 4) and make it an extended partition (note that an extended partitions is also a primary partition). This extended partition is normaly created to contain the rest of the disk.
Then you can generate logical partitions inside the extended partitions. They always start at number 5 even if primary partition 4 (and may be even 3) is not there. There is a maximum, but as long as you do not want to go into ten’s of them, do not bother.
This is in fact the same as you will find at: SDB:Basics of partitions, filesystems, mount points - openSUSE
Now what do you need for Linux?
At least two partitions (one for Swap and one for the root partition (mounted at /). But three is better for a standard setup (Swap, root partitions and a seperate partition for /home comes often very handy).
Swap size depends on your memeory size and if you want to use suspend to disk. For small memories take twice the memory size. For suspend to memory take at least memory size. Sometimes people with big memories (in the system, I mean) often do not use Swap.
For your root partitions take about 20 Gb when you have a seperate /home.
For /home take all you need. It depends on what you and other users are going to store.
Of course having more partitions, that may be dedicated to music or pictures are possible.
In the end it is you who decides on the layout of your disks. We can take no decision.
techwiz03 wrote:
> To correctly make space available for Linux, under w7 you would
> delete the d: e: f: partitions.
sure is good to have a Redmond Guru around here (since a trip to a W7
forum is not likely to help the OP get Linux installed…but we are
expected to know enough about . . . oh, never mind!)
–
palladium
hcvv wrote:
> Sorry to correct.
NO problem, i needed a refresher…
–
palladium
To elaborate, windows understands 2 primary partitions at most and when more are needed understands second one can be extended with up to 16 logical drives. It also understands how to make filesystems with-in a file to create a virtual filesystem. This is far less than the real potential available.
It’s windows lack of real understanding about harddisk structure that complicates any alternate OS installs.
So where the primary partitions are usually defined by windows as
part 1 bootable wholedisk, part2 thru 4 unallocated a successful
dual boot system needs to pair down the whole disk methodology.
- defragment windows drive (windows likes to fragment files and place parts near the end of disk to prevent resizing.
- Resize disk to smaller size
- Use Linux to claim unallocated space
- segment unallocated space as swap, root, home, shared(games), shared(downloads)
- you can define swap and root each to their own partitions and make home,games,download logical as type extended.
- Install Linux to use the swap,root,home
- Use w7 to format games and downloads
- Use Linux to make games and downloads mount where you want them
This is just one way to make windows play nice.
Thank you, I am a bit confused after reading this since this is how I had added Suse to my XP machine. I kept an open partition on one of two hard drives (1 of 4 parts on one drive) and then during the installation process first selected the HD I wanted to use, then the partition. Suse suggested the division of that partition for the /, swap & home. I said go, it said done and I was in dual boot city. I will do the fdisk -1 and post the findings. I am not very versed in Linux but was thinking there was a difference between XP & W7 that was causing this problem. :’(
I could not figure out how to make a txt somewhere I could get to from the repair konsole, so I hope it is alright that I am in the live CD and created an output from there. That in itself is a huge improvement for me, before I started taking a RHEL class at the community college a few weeks ago I was even more lost than now. Anyway, here is the output:
Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5e15512c
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1 992+ 42 SFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 1 13 102400 42 SFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3 * 13 3825 30616576 42 SFS
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda4 3825 121602 946041560 42 SFS
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x700c64f2
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 121602 976759808 7 HPFS/
Thank you for your help.
I am sorry, I was mistaken. I am back in W7 and there are 5 partitions, there is a 100mb partition used for system and is hidden, apparently from Linux as well, I do not see it in the fdisk listing. I found it in the computer management>disk management of W7.
After re-reading all the info and links it appeared that it was not going to be easy to use the partition I wanted to. Fortunately W7 allowed me to easily combine that partition with my already existing C and create a new 30 gb partition on the other drive. All is solved, openSuse is installed, updated and boots properly. Thanks for your help.
M13 wrote:
> All is solved, openSuse is installed, updated and boots properly.
happy to hear!!
–
palladium