Guest tchurch Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 Hi all. I am new to this forum so you will have to be patient with me;) I am going to attempt to install Mandriva on a second HDD that I have. I have my master HDD (40GB) which Windows XP is installed on, and I have a 320GB HDD which is my slave HDD that I put all of my files, photo and video projects on. So, I would like to know what would be a SAFE way to partition that 320GB HDD and install Mandriva on that new partition without loosing any data on either drive, with either free software or whatever I would use to partition the drive. Thanks for all of your help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dude67 Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 This is how I would go about doing that. I take it that the windows is controlling all of that 320 GB slave HDD (as a letter D:\ or something like that). If so, resize the D:\ -drive (or whatever the slave drive is named under XP), so that you have enough free space for your Mandriva installation. Depending on what you wish to do with it, I'd free some 50 - 60 GB from Mandriva. Then you would still have 260 - 270 GB partition left for your personal files (pics, vids etc.). The D:\ -drive is most likely formatted as NTFS files system, but that is no problem nowadays as you can still use it with Linux (ntfs-3g will let you access and write to ntfs drives). So you can use that drive even from Linux system. Once there is adequate amount of free space on your drive, you can start your Mandriva installation. Once asked, where to install, go for the option "Use free space left" ... or something along those lines. I cannot remember what it says exactly, but it should be self-explinatory. For the installation part, here's one excellent walkthrough with nice screenshots from aRTee: http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/installmdv2008.0.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tchurch Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 What should I use to partition the drive? As far as software. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverSurfer60 Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 (edited) Before you do anything with the drive dfrag it. When you do install Mandriva will take care of the partitioning for you. Take a look at the link Dude67 is pointing you to. Edited March 8, 2008 by SilverSurfer60 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 You can use the Mandriva installer and do custom partitioning to free up some space and make it available for Mandriva. However, as silversurfer said - defrag your Windows partition first. Otherwise you won't be able to resize it as much as you want. This is because some files will be in the way, so defragging kind of puts them all at the beginning of the drive. Then you can resize in the Mandriva installer and get as much as you want back without Windows stopping you from going further than you want to. I did this once on a 20GB drive, and it would only give me 10GB at first. Even though, I was only using a few gb on the Windows partition. So I defragged, and then I could get up to 15GB back if I wanted, leaving a little bit of space for Windows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest tchurch Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 I defrag often, so that is no problem. Thank you for all of your help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dude67 Posted March 8, 2008 Report Share Posted March 8, 2008 Thank you for all of your help! No problem! Hope we were able to help. Pls post back to let us know how it went. And, btw, welcome to the board! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassplayer Posted March 9, 2008 Report Share Posted March 9, 2008 I have found this site real helpful for dual booting Linux with either Vista or XP: http://apcmag.com/node/5162/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest burnhamsa Posted March 13, 2008 Report Share Posted March 13, 2008 I just installed Mandriva and I resized my xp partion in the install but it locked up and messed up my xp partion so I just ended having to just wipe of that partion. oh well, don't think I need windows anymore anyways! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted March 13, 2008 Report Share Posted March 13, 2008 (edited) but it locked upMoving/resizing existing partitions can take an extremely long time, chances are it didn't lock up but was still processing. This could have looked like a lockup, as the system may have been unresponsive due to the high level of activity and resources being used. Edited March 13, 2008 by tyme Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest burnhamsa Posted March 13, 2008 Report Share Posted March 13, 2008 Oh! Thats probably what happened then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted March 14, 2008 Report Share Posted March 14, 2008 Let's just say I've made that same mistake myself before, with similar results :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dude67 Posted March 14, 2008 Report Share Posted March 14, 2008 FWIW I always leave resizing win-partitions to win programmes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 14, 2008 Report Share Posted March 14, 2008 I've resized with the Mandriva partitioner during install before now without any problems. As long as you check the disk for errors first and defrag it you generally don't have problems. But, as with anything like this, there is always the chance for things to go wrong and data loss! The good thing about the partitioner with Mandriva is that it is free, and does just the same as the win programs - just that you don't have to buy them to do the job :) But yeah, I always used to use Partition Magic for resizing win partitions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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