Suse Install Formatted User Data

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hi,
I have installed Suse on my Windows Vista 64bit machine a couple of times, but the last time I did it - after a disk change - presented some unanticipated problems.
Prior to install, Windows Disk Management (whose output I was unable to paste into this question) showed that my disks were laid out as follows:

Disk Id Space Free Space Type Pri/Log Name

0
* 55M 55M Unalloc
* 15G ?G RAW Pri Recovery
C 300G 232G NTFS Pri OS
L 107G 97G NTFS Log Photos
M 48G 39G NTFS Log Music
* 468G 468G Unalloc
1
F 1397G 1000G NTFS Pri

Disk 0 is a Seagate ATA drive, while Disk 1 is a Western Digital Ext HDD Usb Device.

Looking back, I think I should have carved out a partition after M before installing Suse, but I was uncertain whether to make it a logical one or a primary, and in the
past the installation has taken the 25 or so gig it needed from the last defined
partition on disk 0. This time, however, it went after disk 1, and reformatted the
entire drive, deleting about 300 gig of user data, including my system backup. What
really suprised me is that it took up the entire drive: 2 gig for the swapfile, then a
20 gig partition, and all the rest for the third partition.

This is not what I would have expected. I especially would not have expected the
installation to re-format user data.

In any case, I did not want Suse on disk 1, so I reformatted the drive and then
used my Partition Manager to rebuild the boot Mbr. So now, I am able to boot into
windows, do not have Suse on my machine, but have lost critical data. My disks are
now back to the way they were when I started (see above), except that drive F is
now all free space, except for my latest backup.

My question is how do I ensure, when I reinstall Suse, that it will choose disk0 for the installation and will not overlay any of the data that I have on that drive.

Thanks in advance,
s660117

2

I wrote a long dissertation for another user on disk setup and openSUSE I would ask you to read.

So openSUSE and in particular, grub do indeed work properly when ran from an external hard drive. The issue is really the same for any computer when you decide to boot from a drive that is not the first boot drive. For instance lets say I have a sda and a sdb, sdb must based on hardware be second, but if I boot from sdb through a BIOS setting or manipulation, grub did not know that when it was installed. If you put grub on the boot drive when it is first or sda, all things work, even if openSUSE is on sdb.

So, what is the problem/fix when you install openSUSE and grub to an external hard drive?

  1. What ever boot drive you select by any BIOS means is HD0. That is the problem in that if I boot from sdb, then it is HD0.
  1. When you installed openSUSE, you did not boot from the external hard drive, so it was NOT labeled by grub as HD0. openSUSE has no way to even guess what hard you are intended on booting from if it is not the first hard drive?

The fix must be done in one of two ways, depending on where you are at. Are you going to do a new install to an external hard drive or are you trying to fix an existing installation on an external hard drive?

If it is a new install here are the basics I would follow.

  1. Keep the number of partitions at four or below.
  2. Use all Primary Partitions (no logical Ones)
  3. Install a generic Master Boot Record (MBR)
  4. Install Grub in the “/” root partition. Make this the Active or booting partition.
  5. During the install, you must modify the booting section so that the external drive is HD0 in device.map and in the menu.lst file. Assign other hard drives in the remaining hardware order.

That is it in a nutshell. Do the above and it will work like a champ. Be for warned that you are trying to NOT install anything on your normal boot drive. Make sure that the booting section is setup just as I say above. Make a backup of any Windows partitions you can not save or restore.

So the above information is considering how to install openSUSE on an external hard drive, but the basic recommendations for a typical hard drive setup remains. If your intent is on installing openSUSE to the present boot drive, then you got to make room for it, but the number of partitions present can be a problem. There is something called Logical partitions (which you refer to) which has to be one of the four primary partitions, can then contain a lot more than for Logical drives. The problem with logical drives is that they can not be marked active for booting. In order to “boot” from a logical drive (located in a Logical Partition) containing openSUSE is that you must place the Grub Boot loader into the MBR (Master Boot Record), something that is not all that compatible with Windows.

THe advantage of loading openSUSE on the second hard drive is that you do not have to mess with the Windows setup at all. Your BIOS must allow you to designate the second hard drive as bootable. If you do load openSUSE on the second hard drive and get it to work, you have a new option for Windows. If you unplug the second hard drive, now Windows will work normally. This is a good thing should you mess up openSUSE. Another thing some people do not think about, if Windows is not the active boot partition, most Windows Service Packs, should one come out you wish to load, will not install at all. So need to install a Windows service pack? Just disconnect the openSUSE hard drive, install it and plug back in your second hard drive. On some BIOS setups, you may have to go back in and designate the second hard drive as the boot drive and BAM, you are back in business.

So I have talked about a lot of stuff here. Anything sound good to you? Then tell me what you want to do, how to proceed.

Thank You,

3

James,
I read you reply carefully, but still remain confused.
It seems to me that installing Suse on the external drive complicates things considerably - the Service Pack issue, etc. I would prefer to have Suse on Windows disk 0 and reserve disk 1 for backup, among other things. I ran like that for months without incident.
Furthermore, your answer does not appear to address the two questions I have: (1) how do I direct the installation to put Suse on the first drive, without tampering with the Windows’ partitions, and (2) why would the installation wipe out 300 gig of user data?
Thanks,
s660117

4

If you already have an OS installed and have more than one physical drive available then the installer will choose the second drive on which to install. The installer cannot magically know which particular partition you want to install into and so makes it’s own logical choice. If this is not what you want then you can change this during the install setup process. Before the installation begins the user is presented with a summary page detailing exactly what changes are to be made, at this point you have the option to go back and change anything you are not happy with. All partitions to be formatted will be shown in red.

If you want to install into “468G 468G Unalloc” you need to manually edit your partition setup during the install setup process.

Ultimately the installer wiped your data because you allowed it to.

5

Raffles,
Thanks for your reply.
As I guess you can tell, I’m relatively new to Linux.
You write “If this is not what you want then you can change this during the install setup process”. Do I do this by making changes when “presented with a summary page”, and if so, how?
I found a presentation (at Picasa Web Albums - caf4926 - openSUSE 11.2…) that says that I should click on Create Partition Setup and then choose Custom Partitioning (for experts) at the appropriate point, but I’m not sure from that point on how dev/sda1, 2 and 3 relate to the Windows’ partitions.
Any help you could offer would be appreciated,
s660117

6

Disk Id Space Free Space Type Pri/Log Name

0
* 55M 55M Unalloc
* 15G ?G RAW Pri Recovery
C 300G 232G NTFS Pri OS
L 107G 97G NTFS Log Photos
M 48G 39G NTFS Log Music
* 468G 468G Unalloc
1
F 1397G 1000G NTFS Pri
In order to install openSUSE on HD0, you will need to create at least a SWAP partition and an EXT4 partition (other partitions types can be used) in the * **468G 468G Unalloc section **as a Logical Partition with these being logical drives within. You MUST load the Grub Boot OS selecting menu into the Master Boot Record (MBR). If openSUSE does not select this automatically, then you will indeed need to pick custom partitioning and start from scratch. As stated before, Your Windows copy will be unable to install any new Service Packs after you make such a change (Install Grub into the MBR and have the Windows Partition not set as Active). It will be imperative to backup all critical data before you begin.

These are your choices if you do not want to use the D: drive. Again, you could decide to simplify the C: drive down by removing the Photo and Music partitions and then C: could be setup to hold openSUSE better. Your present HD0 partition drive partition setup, which is complicated, was not created by SuSE and the rules on what you can boot from was not determined by SuSE and the problem with Windows Service Pack installation was not caused by SuSE. We are just trying to figure out how to squeeze openSUSE in their somewhere.

Thank You,

7

James. thanks again for your reply.
Here’s what I did -
I created three Linux partitions in the Extended Partition: the first was 2 gig, the second was 25 gig, and the third was 50 gig.
I then initiated the Linus install.
When I came to the partition screen, I selected Create Partition Setup.
That through me into a screen that listed three options - my two disks together with the option to do Custom Partitioning (for experts).
I selected the first disk, which then brought up a screen that asked me which partitions on the first disk I wanted to use to install Suse.
I selected the three partitions that I had created, together with the free space at the end of the disk.
When the installation finished, I had the three Linux partitions - all primary - between the Extended partitions and the free space.
Thanks James and Raffles10 for your help,
s660117

8

s660117 says:

Thanks James and Raffles10 for your help,
Happy to help and I hope that openSUSE is working well for you. Do not hesitate to ask for more help if needed.

Thank You,

9

On 2010-09-11 20:06, s660117 wrote:

(1) how do I direct the installation to put Suse on the first
> drive, without tampering with the Windows’ partitions, and (2) why would
> the installation wipe out 300 gig of user data?

The installation will make a proposal. It is your duty to check that the proposal is actually
correct, and if not, change it, or create a totally new proposal yourself. You can use the advanced
settings for that.

If you allow a computer to make choices for you, automatically… well, it will surely fail at some
time or for some people.

Installation of any operating system is a delicate and potentially dangerous operation. So… check
it! Read what it says it is going to do and make sure it is correct for your setup. You are the
admin, so it is your duty.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” GM (Elessar))