questions about partitions..

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

I have two hdd(sda&sdb) with vista on sda, opensuse 10 on sdb. now I want to install another linux (new version suse).
fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbbcccc01

   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        3264    26216448   42  SFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3            3264       30402   217980088   42  SFS
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa2365965

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1       27008   216936448    7  HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2   *       27009       30401    27254272+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5           27009       27270     2104483+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb6           27271       28558    10345828+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb7           28559       30401    14803866   83  Linux

cat /etc/fstab

/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD2500AAKS-_WD-WCAPZ2532845-part5 swap                 swap       defaults              0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD2500AAKS-_WD-WCAPZ2532845-part6 /                    ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD2500AAKS-_WD-WCAPZ2532845-part7 /home                ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD2500AAKS-_WD-WCAPZ2532845-part1 /windows/C           ntfs-3g    users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0
proc                 /proc                proc       defaults              0 0
sysfs                /sys                 sysfs      noauto                0 0
debugfs              /sys/kernel/debug    debugfs    noauto                0 0
usbfs                /proc/bus/usb        usbfs      noauto                0 0
devpts               /dev/pts             devpts     mode=0620,gid=5       0 0
/dev/sda1            /windows/vista/c     ntfs-3g    defaults              1 0
/dev/sda2            /windows/vista/d     ntfs-3g    defaults              1 0
/dev/sda3            /windows/vista/e     ntfs-3g    defaults              1 0
/dev/sda4            /windows/vista/f     ntfs-3g    defaults              1 0
/dev/sda5            /windows/vista/g     ntfs-3g    defaults              1 0
/dev/sda6            /windows/vista/h     ntfs-3g    defaults              1 0
/dev/sda7            /windows/vista/i     ntfs-3g    defaults              1 0
/dev/sda8            /windows/vista/j     ntfs-3g    defaults              1 0

in results of cat /etc/fstab, why are there only 992+ blocks in /dev/sda1, and why is there a boot flag on /dev/sda2? vista is on /dev/sda1 which is mounted to /windows/vista/c.
and what does W95, SFS mean here?
after plug in sdb, all partitions in sda, if you boot into vista, are shown as “dynamic partitions”. I don’t know whether I could install a linux on one of these dynamic partitions?
so I first delete one of these dynamics ones to make some space, then format it with ext3 using fdisk and install linux there?

#2

What is on sdb1
It’s showing as windows in fstab but you didn’t mention it.

I have not seen or used SFS (sda) so I’m unsure on that section, but you want to use sdb right?

#3

it’s kind of strange, becoz windows is on sda1. maybe I mounted sdb1 as /windows/c at some time.
I want to use one of the dynamic partitions in sda to install another os.
btw, ‘/sbin/fdisk -l’ and ‘cat /etc/fstab’ should be switched…

#4

I edited the code title ages ago.

sdb1 is ntfs so are you saying it’s just a data partition and not a win installation? You must know what’s on it!?

I don’t even pretend to understand your sda drive. Sorry. Someone will. But it doesn’t look like sda1 is an installation partition - but that’s a guess. Personally I would probably delete it all on sda and use something I understand. (but that’s me)

You want to use the partitions in sda or some of them, but you must establish what is where.

#5

/dev/sda1 is strage … coz I installed vista on the first partition of the first hard disk(which would be /sda1 or C: in windows) and the size of the partition is roughly 26G. But it turned out /sda2 seems to correspond to the vista partition according to fdisk -l.
But in fstab it’s clearly /sda1 is mounted to /windows/vista/c. and it is mounted correctly.
I know the content on /sdb1. a large partition for media data.

#6

What reason do you have in keeping suse10? Or is it a Enterprise product SLED?
If it’s suse10 it’s out of support/updates ages ago.
In which case you would be best to install 11.2 in place of that.

#7

no, it’s suse 11.0… fedora is version 10 on my laptop. and I always confuse the version:\

#8

FYI Fedora 10 support has/is ended.

I’m not sure I can offer much more advice. Suse 11 is good for a little while yet.

#9

Ya I heard of that… but there’re updates of core and/or fix now and then… considering all the softwares installed I’m too lazy to update to fedora 11 or 12…
avoiding updates saves me much trouble too ~