Win 8.1 dual boot install and (Minor) hardware problems

English Install/Boot/Login
1

**My specific questions are at the bottom of this post.

MY COMPUTER:**
HP DVT-7200
i7 Quad core 2.4ghz 64 bit
12mb
http://reviews.costco.com/2070/100010229/hewlett-packard-hp-envy-dv7t-quad-laptop-intel-core-i7-3630qm-2-4ghz-blu-ray-writer-reviews/reviews.htm

OS INSTALL HISTORY:
Laptop shipped with Win 8.0.

Goal: Produce a Win 8 or OpenSuse 13.1 64 bit dual boot system, default to OpenSuse.
Installed OpenSuse, however it would never boot to the OpenSuse OS. The Windows boot loader only asked if I want to install OpenSuse or start Win 8 (Even though OpenSuse was already installed). Choosing the install only ran the install program, presenting the same two options upon reboot. Win 8 or install OpenSuse.

Goal: Replace Win 8 with OpenSuse single boot:
I forgot the reason, but I could not get OpenSuse to boot as a single OS after running the default KDE install.

Goal: Try installing and trying Ubuntu:
Successfully installed and boot to Ubuntu 14.04 single OS, using all the default install choices. Nice distro but I want OpenSuse.

Goal: Since Ubuntu installed and booted, try OpenSuse again as a single OS:
Successfully installed and booted OpenSuse 13.1 64 bit (KDE).

Two mandatory key Windows-based software packages would not operate properly in Linux. These two programs will not run under Wine, WineTricks, VirtualBox or PlayonLinux. I spent hours on end working with them. There are no acceptable Linux-based distributions or substitutions available. Ubuntu also had the same exact issues with these software packages.

Two minor hardware issues existed in OpenSuse, described further down.

Goal: Run the factory OS minimum restore disks to return back to 8.0 so I can use my mandatory programs.
8 Full hours later my notebook original OS was restored.

Due to Microsoft persistent badgering, I “upgraded” to Win 8.1 a few days ago.
My Windows OS has gotten even more frustrating and buggy. Dog slow for simple tasks like opening folders or loading programs.

My new goal:
Given the time involved with a factory restore, I want to try installing OpenSuse for a dual boot W8.1 system again and have OpenSuse my primary bootable OS.

I am thinking it will take only a few hours to determine if a dual boot system is do-able, rather than just beginning the 8 hour Windows restore process. I wanted to consult this community before proceeding.

I have all the Windows 8 driver .exe install files available, if that may help with the minor hardware issues.

HARDWARE/DRIVER ISSUES IN OPENSUSE:

  1. Validity fingerprint scanner did not work.
  2. Built-in notebook subwoofer did not work (Sounds like a tin can)

QUESTIONS:

  1. Is there a fairly easy work-around for the boot loader issue?
  2. Do you think Ndiswrapper might be able to get my validity sensor and subwoofer working? Those are on my wish list but not imperative.

I have been following OpenSuse a long time, since v7 or v8. Mainly tinkering with every distro. But this 13.1 is truly something special. Amazing.
Thank you very much in advance for your thoughts.

2

Hi
First thing to do is boot from a live linux OS, suggest the openSUSE 13.1 rescue cd, onto USB device or cd and boot from that. Since it’s a HP, power on and press F9 to browse to the usb/cd device and select the bootx64.efi file. Note, no need to disable secure boot if enabled, openSUSE will work fine.

When at the rescue system, open a terminal;


su -
gdisk -l /dev/sda
lsblk

That should show something like (this is windows preview, dual secure boot with openSUSE 13.1 on a HP ProBook 4440s);


grover:~ # gdisk -l /dev/sda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.7

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sda: 625142448 sectors, 298.1 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): EEBBBD0B-B126-4F73-A553-7C428F00CDB4
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 625142414
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2014 sectors (1007.0 KiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048          616447   300.0 MiB   2700  Windows RE
   2          616448         1148927   260.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System
   3         1148928         1411071   128.0 MiB   0C01  Microsoft reserved
   4         1411072        85297151   40.0 GiB    8300  Linux filesystem
   5        85297152       420841471   160.0 GiB   8300  Linux filesystem
   6       420841472       437618687   8.0 GiB     8200  Linux swap
   7       437618688       625142414   89.4 GiB    0700  Microsoft basic data
grover:~ # lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 298.1G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   300M  0 part 
├─sda2   8:2    0   260M  0 part /boot/efi
├─sda3   8:3    0   128M  0 part 
├─sda4   8:4    0    40G  0 part /
├─sda5   8:5    0   160G  0 part /data
├─sda6   8:6    0     8G  0 part [SWAP]
└─sda7   8:7    0  89.4G  0 part 
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom

What you will need to do is also ensure windows 8.1 does a full shutdown as well, I have a shortcut on the desktop with;


shutdown /s /t 5

This will ensure it doesn’t keep the hybrid boot active.

How much space do you want to leave for windows 8?

3

Since a Win 8 machine I assume EFI BIOS.

openSUSE should not have any trouble if you do the following.

  1. Instill Windows before any other OS. It simply does not like anything none MS resize if need to provide free unpartitioned space for Linux
  2. Be sure to boot the openSUSE install disk in EFI mode mixing MBR and EFI booting can be a problem. ( note that you should check the ISO check sums to assure a good download and burn the disk as an ISO image)
  3. the following should be true or set if needed
    a) grub2-efi boot loader
    b) the efi boot partition ( small FAT partition ) should be mounted as /boot/efi and NOT formatted ( in the case of a single OS install formatted FAT)
    c) the secure boot box should be checked
    d) a root partition of 20-30 gig (note that if using BTRFS or LVM you will want a separate small (500 meg) boot partition (mounted /boot) formatted ext2 or 4)
    e) a swap partition. (if planing on suspend to disk then should be at least equal in size to RAM)
    f) a home partition this is where users personal files go so size accordingly. Default is to use the rest of free space on drive
  4. pay attention during install don’t just press OK without reading and understanding the screens

Note all above but checking the secure boot box and setting a separate boot partition if needed should be default

4

Thank you for the responses.

“How much space do you want to leave for windows 8?”

Around 250gb out of my 1tb drive.

5

Hi
So if you boot into windows and the run the disk management tool you can use that to resize it, then you should be good to go. AFAIK, you may want to disable the pagefile, defrag, get rid of temp files etc before reducing. Then re-enable after shrinking.

Still be good to see the output from gdisk and lsblk as I’m sure there are recovery partitions present…

6

My experiences (up to the last time I tried, not sure about the Win version for that) is that MS disk management tool does not shrink the partitions as far as they can safely be shrunk. On a 1TB drive, it might not allow the OP to shrink Win to that size (I do not know that for certain).

I find it best to use a 3rd party partitioner to shrink the Windows partition, you have a lot more control over the size.

And, I do not know if this is a fact in every Win version, but after you shrink a partition with Win’s disk management utility, other partitioners cannot seem to work with the partition very well after that.

7

On Sun 12 Oct 2014 09:06:03 PM CDT, Fraser Bell wrote:

malcolmlewis;2669107 Wrote:
> Hi
> So if you boot into windows and the run the disk management tool you
> can use that to resize it, then you should be good to go. AFAIK, you
> may want to disable the pagefile, defrag, get rid of temp files etc
> before reducing. Then re-enable after shrinking.
>
> Still be good to see the output from gdisk and lsblk as I’m sure there
> are recovery partitions present…

My experiences (up to the last time I tried, not sure about the Win
version for that) is that MS disk management tool does not shrink the
partitions as far as they can safely be shrunk. On a 1TB drive, it
might not allow the OP to shrink Win to that size (I do not know that
for certain).

I find it best to use a 3rd party partitioner to shrink the Windows
partition, you have a lot more control over the size.

And, I do not know if this is a fact in every Win version, but after you
shrink a partition with Win’s disk management utility, other
partitioners cannot seem to work with the partition very well after
that.

Hi
Worked fine for shrinking and moving my windows 8.1 install, in fact it
wanted to reduce it to 15GB (yup fifteen GB)…

I have it blown away now, got too annoyed with it, have a windows 7 and
a technical preview setup to dual boot now, the windows 8 machine is
pure openSUSE…

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° LFCS, SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.11.10-21-desktop
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8

Hi, Malcom:

I am finding that more & more of my machines are morphing to pure openSUSE, as well, lately. I am down to just a few dual-boots.:slight_smile: