Windows 7 and OS 11.2 : Dual boot

current Operating Sys: Windows 7 64 bit
HP Laptop AMD Turion

I want to install OS 11.2. The install process wants to take over almost the entire disk space that is free i.e. not system or recovery partition and create my LINUX environment. 450 Gb. I want LINUX to have 100-200 Gb of space and leave the rest under NTFS and Windows control. I tried to shrink that partition and install Linux on the new partition made up from the freed up space. However it didn’t work. Any pointers how I manage so that I have dual boot system but I only give Linux part of the disk o play with.

I am new to a dual boot LINUX system

When the installer comes to the Disk partitioning scheme just over ride the selection and adjust the partitioning size to what you want. Suse generally creates 3 partitions Swap small normally 2x memory but 1 gig is more then enough for most desktop systems. root mounted as / hold the os, configurations and most applications and maybe some application data etc. normally 20 gig is plenty unless you plan something odd you can get buy with as little as 10 if you do not plan to install many apps. And last home mounted as /home by default the installer will take all available space unless you override it. The home partition is optional but does segregate your personal data from the OS which is very handy when upgrading or changing flavors.

Do not pass this point in the install unless you are sure what the installer is set to do!!!

It is best to leave the the space you intend to install Linux on free at let the installer do the partitioning

I would shrink one of the partitions while in windows. With the free unallocated space you need to create a custom partition scheme while in the installer (for experts) is one of the dire warnings you will encounter and it is true that one mistake here can have dire consequences. It is not difficult to get it right, you must simply be careful. What we need is a step by step guide as I no longer can remember the individual steps… Unless someone here knows a link maybe I should get the camera out and make one.

To shrink in NTFS in Windows with Disk Manager, you may first need to defrag and remove Restore points. I have shrunk NTFS C: drive of Vista a couple of times with Linux without any bad effect, it would shrink more effectively as C: was not live, more could be moved.

As someone else said, you can adjust partition sizes, and create an NTFS or FAT32 partition for use with Windows. I would format NTFS5 on the windows side, FAT32 format doesn’t have any secret journal file, formatting it with Linux has worked reliably for me.

One tip is to make your Windows partitions noauto, so you can hibernate from either OS without fear of making ondisk data inconsistent with memory version.

Do check GRUB is not installed in the MBR, so you can select GRUB or standard Windows boot manager via “active partition” toggle.

Swap doesn’t need to be more than memory size (assuming you have 2GiB RAM or more), in fact you can get away with hibernating with a bit less, because the pages are actually compressed for fast save/restore.

So, I shrink my windows partition and have 128 Gb of unallocated space. Now, when I tried to use the installer and went to Custom Partitioning(for experts), the expert partitoner doesn’t see it i.e. doesn’t list the unassigned space on the System view. Now, if I choose the Hard Disk option I see it list 125 Gb unassigned but when I tried to make the installer use it pops up “YaST2 : The current selection is invalid: Too few partitions are marked for removal or the disk is too small. To install Linux, select more partitions to remove or select a larger disk”

What do you guys recommend?

Thank you

How many partitions does the disk have already? the Max is 4 but you can have an extended which can hold additional. Also the space must be at the end of the disk. It is a bad idea to leave gaps between partitions.

First thank you for that quick response.

Yes it has four and I hoping the installer would create the extendend partition. How can I tell if it the end of disk? If I were to look at the Windows Disk Mgmt tool the unallocated space is in the middle.

Either you can delete the other partitions, to have free-space, then let the installer allocate partitions from the unused space after the shrunk NTFS partition.

Or if you have data in say an extended partition, you need to run partitioner tool from Live CD, or a distro like System Rescue with Gparted on it, and grow/move other partitions till the layout has free space you want.

Hopefully you can just remove any partitions after the shrunk one, and make an extended partiton for rest of disk. The need to adjust & create other partitions, is another reason I shrunk Vista C: from Linux and not Windows (but I didn’t care too much if I lost the data in C:).

If you have any data you care about, make sure you have a back up.

Yeah if I allow the “Recovery” partition to be part of the install proposal then it proposal make a lot of sense. I am been sitting on that for a long time now… I am very close to pulling the trigger on that! I do have the backup recovery CD if all fails. Thank you guys!