how to partition harddrive to install mandrake 10

[photoworks]

Does anyone know where is located the FAQ item wher it is explained how to partition the hardrive in order to install linux Mandrake 10.0.

 

I actually have windows XP professionnal installed on my machine (NTFS FORMATTED).

 

I also have Partition magic 8.0.

 

 

i am at a loss at how to partition it because i have never done partitionning before.

 

 

[bvc]

http://www.mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=6388

http://www.mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=6389

[photoworks]

http://www.mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=6388

http://www.mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=6389

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

:unsure:

 

I have started to read those link and, i am afraid, i am still at a loss. Is there not an explicit tutorial on how to partition your hard drive from windows with Partition Magic, without uninstaling windows.

 

I was thinking more like a step by step, since the link you provided are more for those who have a knowledge already.

 

Like i said, i never did before partitionning.

 

:unsure:

Edited August 18, 2004 by photoworks

[dmkh]

I'm not a big help for you because I've always done the partitioning under DOS with Partition Magic 7.0 on floppy. I just want to tell you not to forget to backup your data, make an image of your XP system (with Ghost for example) and defrag your hard disk before going ahead with your partionning.

 

In general, to partition a hard disk you have first to resize the hard disk (Operations - Resize) to reduce the disk part used by XP.

 

Then on the free part of the HDD you've just obtained, you'll create new partitions (Operations - Create). The number of partitions depend on how you'll install MDK, but at least you should have two partitions, one for / and the other for swap.

 

Usually I don't format my newly created partitions that I will format during the installation of MDK.

 

Before installing MDK, I suggest you take a look at your BIOS to first enable LBA mode of your hard disk and take note of the geometry values of your hard disk CHS (cylinders, heads, sectors).

When you install MDK, in the welcome screen, you should press F1 and at the command prompt type "linux hda=number of cylinders,number of heads,number of sectors" (replace theses numbers by the values you've noted and I suppose that you install XP and MDK in the your first master hard disk). This tip I've learned on another forum is aimed at preventing the destruction of the partition table of the hard disk.

 

That's what I've done to install MDK 10 in dual boot with Win 98.

 

Good luck

Edited August 18, 2004 by dmkh

[arctic]

Is there not an explicit tutorial on how to partition your hard drive from windows with Partition Magic, without uninstaling windows.

well, if you have partition magic, it is very simple and you can't really mess up your system. every step can be moved backwards again. actually, i don't have pmagic8 in front of me right now, but i used it to set up my hd then for my first linux-install. so i will try to give you some hints.

 

as you can see on pmagic, you have a nice graphical ui for partitioning. you select your hd and select "add partition". this partition should be placed behind the win partition. give it a minimum of ~6 gb. then add in this ~6 gb partition at the beginning another small partition (500 mb or so) which will be the /boot partition for linux. then add another 1 gb partition at the end of the 6bg partition. this will be the swap-file partition.

 

next thing you have to do is to define the format of your partitions. partitionmagic provides you with a format selection. i recommend to make the /boot ext2 or ext3, the rest "linux reiserFS" (if it is available, don't remember), otherwise "linux ext3". the swap will be set to "linux-swap".

 

now, select "done" and let pmagic take over. any files that are on the intended linux-partitions will be moved to another partition (that is to the win-partition) without data loss. reformatting the drive will take ... dunno... depends on your comp, but it can take up several hours.

 

once all this is done, you can reboot your comp and start installing mandrake. when installing mandrake, select "manually select partitions" and you will see your newly created partitions. so set the small boot partition to "/boot", the swap to "/swap" and the rest to "/" and select for the "/" reiserFS and for the "/boot" ext3 (just to make sure that everything will be fine). then relax, let mdk format these drives and go on with the rest of your installation.

 

good luck.

Edited August 18, 2004 by arctic

[bvc]

PM8 only does swap, ext2, and ext3.

 

IMO there's no need for a /boot partition unless you plan to have multi linux distros installed, and even then I think it's useles. I've had 6-8 distros installed at one time and don't use a boot. Tried once, found it ultra confusing and I guess linux did to....I lost it all.

 

I also suggest letting pm8 do ALL the partitioning and never letting linux do anything. The linux tools are great, the problem is XP's desire for control. PM8 updates everything as needed so xp knows what is going on, and that's the way xp likes it. Control. Then when you install mandrake you just give it the mount points for the partition/s you already created w/ pm8 and uncheck that it is to format the partition. Mandrake will see the swap so you need not tell it to use it as swap. It just does.

 

Put the swap between linux and xp

xp | swap | / | /home

Then there's 'no chance' of data corruption between xp and linux when you defrag in xp.

 

/

(root) should be at least 3GB, recommended 4GB and up.

 

/home

can be whatever. I've had 500MB and 3GB. Depends on what you are going to do If you are going to download and/or keep a lot of media make it bigger. 500MB wasn't a good thing, so at least 1GB.

 

For what it's worth, I always have a small/minimum RESCUE install of ML. Currently it's on a 1GB partition and is 300MB used with a minimum install of selected pkgs. This is the install that controls and runs grub the bootloader. It is not mounted in any other distro and when/if it is booted only mounts its / (root) fs. This is great for disaster/data recovery and repairing damaged installs/bootloaders and what_not. I like to tinker so I probably need this more than the average user but I still think it's a good idea for anyone. You may want to wait and do this the next go around, but I thought I'd mention it here for you or anyone else.