I have a new notebook that came with Vista pre-installed.
I would like to install openSUSE on an external USB hard drive, but I want to be 100% certain that my Vista install is not affected in any way. (I am fearful because I have read of many problems with the bootloader not working properly after such an installation.)
So, here is my question…
If I set my system BIOS to boot from the external USB hard drive, and then do a clean install of openSUSE from the install DVD, telling it to put openSUSE on the external USB hard drive, when I later reset my BIOS to boot from the ‘C’ drive (the Vista drive), will it be as if openSUSE had never been installed? In other words, can I be certain that Vista will have been unaffected by the openSUSE installation?
I sure do hope so!
Thanks in advance for the feedback.
IMO you are right in most of what you state. But during installation your Vista disk will be seen and the partition part of the installation may offer you a solution including shrinking of your ‘C’ partition and adding Linux partitions on that drive. Select that part of that list for changing and click around (even if you have to use expert mode) to let the second disk be used only. It is not difficult in principle, but handle with care. After you think the partition is right, you will be back at the proposal where you can see again if the first disk is used or not. Try and retry. When in doubt Cancel the whole and start anew or ask here first what to do.
Also later when the bootloader is installed see if it is done on the right disk.
Of course a backup of ‘C’ is always a good thing
Okay…I played around with the partitioning suggestions, and here is what I have:
Create swap partition /dev/sdb1 (2.0GB)
Create root partition /dev/sdb2 (20.0GB with ext3
Create partition /dev/sdb3 (89.7 GB) for /home with ext3
Set mount point of /dev/sda2 to /windows/C
Set mount point of /dev.sda5 to windows/D
My external drive that I am trying to load openSUSE onto is a WD120 GB drive, so the entries for sdb seem to make sense.
I assume that the entries for sda pertain to my original notebook drive, containing a recovery partition, a vista (C) partion, a windows data (D) partion.
Iḿ a little fearful of the suggestion that during the openSUSE install, openSUSE is going to do something about setting the mounting points of my C and D drives.
What I am trying to accomplish is that by simply unplugging the external drive, the notebook will boot to Vista as if nothing had ever been done with openSUSE.
Can anyone assure me that openSUSE is not going to mess up Vista when it ‘sets the m ounting points of C and D?’
Thanks.
This partition schema looks very good to me.
It is not the mount points that will do any harm. They mean only that, when your system is booted to openSUSE in everyday usage, you will find the data on those partitions in /windows/C resp. /windows/D. Nothing is done to them during installation.
- You can easily remove them from the list before you carry on with the installation (when you have fear that it will do any harm, wich is not the case).
- You can let them mount readonly (when you are afraid of changing them when openSUSE runs in every day live).
- You can mount them on a different place (I could e.g. imagine that you like to have your D partition on /home/your-username/VistaD or so).
- You can do all of this also after installation whenever you like it or you like to change it.
BUT
I warn against removing one of your systems disks (which sdb will be after installation) just because you think it is physicaly easy to to so. Its is very easy to pull the cable of a so called external harddisk, but you should think of the consequences first. These are not different in any way from the consequences of removing an internal harddisk with the same usage!
To illustrate this read Unable to boot into windows without linux! - openSUSE Forums
This setup is actually rather technically complex. Even so, there is an excellent solution for you specifically because you have Vista.
I recently worked with another user with a similar setup, but with XP. If you wish to read about it for ref, it’s at Unable to boot into windows without linux! - Page 3 - openSUSE Forums posts #25-#33 and #36-#41. This provides background, and a solution if, and only if, you want to boot each drive autonomously and independently, that is not boot one OS from the other, and you want to control which is the boot drive by switching the bios configuration (or in some bios’s, there is an on-the-fly boot menu, too). But again, unnecessary since you have Vista.
The fundamental issue is that with a USB external drive, even if the bios supports booting from that drive, the boot loader is not provided all the information it needs, as it does with the internal drive. This is because the external is not “mapped” by the bios like the other hardware. There is an additional complication in that a boot loader needs to know the boot device sequence; when you install openSUSE on the external the installer will see that the internal is the first boot drive and try to configure the boot accordingly. But, if you boot directly from the external then it is the first drive in the scenario, and the boot fails. Hence the solution in that thread above is to (1) control the boot from the bios and (2) reconfigure openSUSE with the external as the first drive. This is the only alternative with XP or earlier.
Fortunately, Vista has an entirely new boot loader system. IMO the best solution with Vista is to set up a chain load boot from Vista to the external drive. If that drive is connected, control will pass to the boot loader installed on it. If the drive is not connected, Vista will not be able to find it and you will be looped back to the Vista boot menu. Furthermore, there is no issue with boot drive sequence as the internal is always the first drive and openSUSE will be default configure itself that way on the external.
To do this with Vista requires two steps. First, when installing openSUSE at the Boot Loader step (you need to install with the DVD), you need to enter that section and manually set up the configuration. Under the Boot Loader Installation tab, you need to check only the “Boot from Root Partition”; this will install the linux boot loader “grub” to the boot sector in that partition. Under Options also check the boxes for “Set the active flag” and “Write generic MBR code”. At the previous Partitioning step, make sure that the root partition (identified by a forward-slash mount point) is one of the first three primary partitions. Take note of its name, e.g., “sdb1”.
The second step is to set up Vista to hand off booting to the grub installed above. Unfortunately, MS only provides a very cryptic command line tool to configure Vista. However, there is an excellent free gui tool called EasyBCD from Neosmart here NeoSmart Technologies. Read the tutorial section on Linux (it’s a really simple tool), download and install it. Be sure the external is connected! In the Add dialog, there will be a pull-down which displays all the partitions on all the disks; select the root partition from the first step above. Then reboot, and the setup will be complete (you don’t see it as such until after the reboot; that threw me at first). Now when you reboot Vista you will see a menu allowing to boot either disk/OS. Actually pretty simple, and no risk to Vista. If you run into a glitch, it will be with the openSUSE config on the external, and we will be able to resolve that.
I tested this setup just earlier this week, and it worked great. Hope that helps.
EDIT: Just noticed @hcvv linked the same thread as I did above. Let me emphasize again (I developed that other solution) that in that thread we were dealing with XP and did not have the advantage of the Vista boot loader. The solution here is IMO much better.