Hi,
I am installing 11.1 and I am getting this message in the partitions section:
“Delete Windows Partition /dev/sda1 (222 GB), Resize impossible due to inconsistent fs. Try checking fs Under Windows.”
Why would it do that? I want to keep the partition - Windoze XP. When I was installing 11.0 (on a different machine) it never complained about the Windows partition - Vista.
Did you defrag Windows before your installation attempt? It may be trying to carve up your Windows partition to install there, but can not because Windows is not defragged (or was not shut down properly).
Where are you trying to install 11.1 ? On top of an existing 11.0 ? If trying to install on top of an existing 11.0, it could be the openSUSE installed “guessed” incorrectly as to where you wished to install, and you may need to edit that to have it install automatically to the location you wish.
Also, pay close attention to where the openSUSE installer decides to place Grub, as if it puts grub in the wrong place you may not be able to boot after the install.
Hi oldcpu,
Thanks for your reply. I am in the process of doing the defrag, recommended in a older post on the same issue. Defrag never did anything special for Windows, I used to do it in Windows '98 to try and speed it up a bit. Then again, that was one of the worst OSs in the history of the computer. It takes an eternity, and I will probably be as old as the man in your avatar by the time it finishes.
It’s a clean install over XP. I hope I am still able to boot afterwards… that would be a disastrous. It’s a machine I am using in work and if I can’t get back in to XP, I would have to do a lot of explaining to John in IT support. The reason I’m installing OpenSuse is because I spend 99% of my time remote logging into various UNIX boxes and I am sick of Putty. Everything we do here is UNIX so I don’t see the point of using XP at all.
/jlar
Hmmm…
Its also possible your WindowsXP “swap” partition may cause problems, and it may be necessary to disable that before the defrag. I’m not a winXP user so I don’t know much about that.
Reference booting, assuming Windows has no boot manager, just check during the install that openSUSE Linux says it will be placing “grub” (the Linux boot manager) on the MBR. If it is NOT doing that, then do not let the install proceed.
We tried to create some guidance here (although with your 11.0 experience you likely know most of this already): NEWBIES - Suse-11.1 Pre-installation – PLEASE READ - openSUSE Forums
No luck I’m afraid… 11.1 is still complaining about the Windows partitions. I have a C: and a D: drive. The drive is a recovery partition, with some HP stuff on it. I defragged them both. I am surprised really because I put 11.0 on my Dell laptop which also had a recovery partition and it didn’t complain.
/jlar
You probably have some swap drive on Windows that you can disable (as it is likely in a fixed location). After disabling it, defrag and try again.
Also run the windows chkdisk program (I’m not a windows user, so I don’t know what it is called - one of our dual windows/linux users will have to chime n).
Yes, it is chkdisk that should be used with the -r parameter, there may be an issue with the file system.
Windows does not use a swap partition, it uses a file named pagefile.sys located in the OS’s partition at the root level (i.e., usually under “c:”). The default is to allow Windows to dynamically set its size, which is not a good idea anyway. XP and before use a lousy memory manager which overuses virtual memory, but it is problematic to permanently remove it altogether. Usually 500MB is more than adequate, and if the machine is used lightly, 256MB should do fine. Having a smaller page file will enable to do the swapping it unnecessarily insists on doing, while with other processes force Windows to use all available RAM (which is how Vista’s new memory manager work, as does Linux).
Reference booting, assuming Windows has no boot manager, just check during the install that openSUSE Linux says it will be placing “grub” (the Linux boot manager) on the MBR. If it is NOT doing that, then do not let the install proceed.
I don’t understand this advice. If anything with the messages the installer is throwing, I would try to avoid the MBR if possible because what could be confusing the installer is something weird in the partition table or the recovery partition - manufacturers are more and more doing undocumented proprietary things with the table, and bios recovery extensions and/or recovery partitions - following the continuing practice of Microsoft (most recently, Vista’s unexpected use of the MBR disk signature). I know what the sticky says, but frankly I agree with the wiki article written by the dev’s:
We recommend to keep the MBR “neutral”, that is, not consider it part of any operating system. For that purpose, a generic MBR can be used, that simply determines one of the 4 primary partitions by a bit flag, and then loads the first block of that partition in turn, to continue the boot process. The Yast installation offers the option to install such generic code in the MBR; do it when in doubt.
@eeijlar - My suggestion is that you manually control the partitioning if you can. Take a look in Windows under Computer Management/Disk Management to verify how many partitions you already have - you have one for the Windows OS, one for recovery; make sure there isn’t a 3rd which may be used for the recovery program code. If 3 are already taken, your only choice is to create a 4th “primary” which must be an “extended” primary, and then create 3 “logical” partitions within the extended to place the openSUSE swap, root, and home partitions. (The machine limits you to 4 primaries, one of which can be an extended) - in this case, you will need to install grub to the MBR. But if you only have 2 already taken, you can create a 3rd primary for the openSUSE root, then as above a 4th extended primary in which you create 2 logicals, one for swap and one for home. Or, perhaps better yet, you can just put all of openSUSE on the 3rd primary, swap on the 4th primary, and not get into an extended with logicals at all - this is the simplest setup. Then - and this is critical - during installation at the Boot Loader step, go into the dialog and under the Installation tab in the Location section, check the box for “boot from root partition” and un-check any other boxes (particularly the MBR). Then click Boot Loader Options which will give a new screen, and in the upper left click on “set active flag for boot partition”. This will result in the grub boot loader being installed in openSUSE root partition, and leave the Windows MBR code untouched. The Windows code will choose grub for booting (that is what the active flag does), and grub can in turn boot Windows. This is by far the safest approach.
By the way, you have one other alternative. If you work in a Unix shop and use Unix a lot, and your Windows needs are limited to occasional use of a few programs, and your machine has at least 1GB of RAM, you can consider running Windows in a virtual machine on top of openSUSE. This has become a widely used technique in the last couple of years, and generally works superbly. Note that this would require your having a Windows installation CD, to install in the virtual machine. Just fwiw.
oldcpu wrote:
> eeijlar;1936191 Wrote:
>> No luck I’m afraid… 11.1 is still complaining about the Windows
>> partitions. I have a C: and a D: drive. The drive is a recovery
>> partition, with some HP stuff on it. I defragged them both. I am
>> surprised really because I put 11.0 on my Dell laptop which also had a
>> recovery partition and it didn’t complain.
>
> You probably have some swap drive on Windows that you can disable (as
> it is likely in a fixed location). After disabling it, defrag and try
> again.
>
> Also run the windows chkdisk program (I’m not a windows user, so I
> don’t know what it is called - one of our dual windows/linux users will
> have to chime n).
>
>
A couple of points-
XP defrag doesn’t (necessarily) move files, so it can defrag leaving
a lot of “empty” space between blocks of files. It can be seen in the
graphic while defrag is running. In Vbox, I have a 5.5GB partition,
3.6GB used, with a 1GB block about 3.5GB from the start. Just for
interest, I defragged it and the block increased in size by 25% toward
the end of the partition 
If swap is set for “system managed size” I believe the swap file is
deleted at shutdown (and creates a lot of disk activity at boot).
It is possible that a partition manager (Partition Magic) may work - I
have had success with it, I didn’t check/defrag before using but I
believe it moved the data, or a backup/cloning tool (True Image) could
be used to backup and then delete/create smaller/restore the partition.
–
PeeGee
Asus M2V-MX SE, AMD LE1640, openSuSE 11.0 x86-64/XP Home dual boot
Asus M2NPV-VM, AMD 64X2 3800+, openSuSE 10.3 x86-64/XP Home dual boot
Asus eeePC 701, Mandriva 2009.0
Hi,
Thanks everyone for their replies…
Through a combination of chkdsk and defrag I got rid of the delete message. Now it is keeping the windows partitions, but it’s telling me that it want’s to shrink them. Is this ok? Will windows still work with a shrunk partition?
/jlar
Shrinking means you’ll take some space from the Windows drive to install Linux on because there is no additional free space partitioned for the OS to install on.
This is perfectly normal however as with ANY installation procedure (of any operating system, even Windows upgrades), make sure you have backups of any critical information on your Windows installation.
I know it doesn’t solve your problem, but if you find you don’t have enough free space for suse, why not use a live cd? You can save your data on a usb stick. This has the advantage in that you can run from any pc.
I’m always keen to learn more on this. If grub does not go to the MBR, and if one is simply installing openSUSE on to a PC that only has winXP, how can the PC boot? Does that mean openSUSE /boot (or simply / for most of us) must be installed on a primary partition that is marked as the active partition? And that active / partition has grub installed there?
In which case when the PC boots, it goes to the active partition first (which is openSUSE / ) and runs grub, which then gives one a choice to either :
That’s the only way I can see the PC would boot properly if grub is not on the MBR (but I concede I do not know much about this).
Installed… and all works fine. Lightning quick compared to XP. Thanks everyone.
Hi all
I got the same error but failed with the other suggestions made here. Here is my solution:
I burned a CD with gParted 0.45.2 to resize the partitions and create manually the ones for Linux. But then I recognized that my Windows Vista made 4 Primary partitions (Dell Utility, Recovery, Windows (C) and Data (D) during Setup. It seems that one cannot add a 5th primary partition. So I copied all my data from D: to an external Disk, erased that partition and made a new Extended partition where in I problemless was able to install Linux.
May be that helps
Andreas
I’m having the same problem (11.1 x64) - just that it’s saying that with all four of my partitions! 
I already ran chkdsk (two times!) on all partitions (with “Automatically fix filesystem errors”), didn’t find anything. I’ve used the verifier for the installer, turned out OK as well. I’ve even wasted about two hours running two full passes of the memory test, no errors either.
It still insists that the fs on all four partitions is “inconsistent” and wants to delete anything :silly:
I’ve defragged all four partitions just a few days ago.
New install, alongside Windows 7 RC x64.
So where should it put Grub? In the mbr?