Greetings
My system, OpenSuSE 11.3 (box2), has two physical disks in one volume group. One disk is almost empty. Unfortunately I need to install Windows XP as dual boot. (Yes, I know it would be easier to do this the other way around.) I plan to repartition the almost empty disk to make room for a Windows XP partition. The disk is NOT the primary master disk, because that’s where my OpenSuSE 11.3 resides.
Will I break LVM if I install Windows XP?
Will XP boot under lvm?
Do I need to remove the disk from of the volume group before installing XP?
Thank you for any information, comments, experiences or views.
Box 2: OpenSuSE 11.3 || KDE 4.4.4 || 2.6.34.7-0.5-default || i686 AMD Athlon™ XP 2400+
As far as I am aware, LVM is something that only runs as your OS runs. For Linux this is no problem because it knows about LVM. Are you sure that Windows XP knows anything about LVM? When not, you answered your own question.
That is true, hcvv. However, if I have answered my own question I don’t yet understand my answer.
This is one line from fdisk
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
.
.
/dev/sda4 1838 9730 63394816 8e Linux LVM
The sd4 parttion is LVM-type and the install program (I guess also for XP) will recognize that? If I reduce and split, I can keep one LVM-type and make one “W95 FAT32 (LBA)”-type partition, and install XP on that partition. However, the physical disk is still lvm. XP will overwrite MBR, but is the lvm info also overwritten?
You are a bit scanty with your information. Why but one line of fdisk -l?
As far as I can see, it is not your whole disk (sda4) that is governed by LVM, but only partition 4. This is contrary to
has two physical disks in one volume group
What about the other partitions (I assume, but again I can not know because you keep almost all information secret) that sda4 is not the only partition (that would be strange but possible).
Not only an uncensored
fdisk -l
would give more information, but also the the output of the following three statements
vgdisplay -v
lvdisplay
mount
would be very usefull to tell us (and maybe you) what the present situation is.
What I maen to say in my earlier post is that LVM is part of Linux. Thus neither the BIOS, nor Windows XP can do anything with it.
Thanks for valuable comments. Although gaming is not the essential issue here gogalthorp, using gaming as example, clarified the concept for me. However, I don’t agree that lvm is tricky. I’m used to lvm for the HP-UX world, so I totally embrace the flexibility. Though I do admit that lvm adds to the complexity of a system, that doesn’t outweigh the value of flexibility. Thus, lvm on desktop/workstations as well as servers
To Henk van Velden: I’m not trying to be secretive, just trying clarify the problem at hand by reducing redundant information. I apologize if that ended up wrong.
Now I’ll wrestle the physical disk out of the volume group. And install XP on the bare metal. To bad really, 'cause it is a waste of disk space.
I agree with your remark about LVM. I also know it from my HP-UX experience.
I do not agree with your remark about trying to leave out redundant information. You see where such things end up. You talk “whole disk” where it is about a partition. Factual (read: computer generated) information is unbeatable and can only be enhanced with talkative information (like: this is where I use that partitions for and this is what I aim to achieve).
I can not comment on the decission taken by you to “wrestle the physical disk out of the volume group” (or do you mean the partition?) because I still have no factual information. But when you are happy with your decision that is OK.