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Help w/ Linux partition?

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by galahad04 1 view

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I am currently running Windows Me on a 4 GB FAT 16 partition, and now that I have purchased a 40 GB USB 2.0 external hard drive, I can (finally!) install my copy of Red Hat Linux 7.0. I was hoping someone could please verify if the plan I have to install the Linux partition will work. *Please note that it is my intention to have the two partitions co-exist, so that I can use both OSs.

Please allow me to start with some background information about my existing partitions--as I mentioned, my (single) internal hard drive has a 4 GB capacity. However, because I upgraded to Windows Me from Windows 95, Windows 95 had already divided the single physical 4.0 GB disk into two separate 2 GB partitions when I obtained my computer. These two pre-existing partitions show up as my C: drive (2 GB) and D: drive (2 GB) in Windows Me. Anyway, my plan is to keep the C: drive partition as my Windows Me partition, but move all existing Windows Me material on D: drive to G: drive (G: is my 40 GB external hard drive)--and then set up D: drive as my Linux partition. I believe that this will work since without messing up my Windows Me partition, since it has been my experience in the past that formatting C: drive (e.g., when reinstalling Windows) will not affect the data on D: drive, but I am not sure if the reverse is true. (In other words, will formatting D: drive to set up a Linux partition adversely affect the data on C: drive's Windows Me partition?) Finally, 3 additional closing questions. (1) Will the planned 2 GB FAT 16 partition be enough/adequate space for a Linux partition? (2) Does the Red Hat installation wizard interface allow you to set up the partition while installing Red Hat, or do you have to create the partitionbefore running the install program? (3) Do I need to buy Partition Magic in order to avoid potential loss of data on my Windows Me partition?

8 replies

by cruznn

You will have no problem. Red Hat has a partioning utility you can use as you install Red Hat it will be in the partition part of the installation called the "manual partition tool disk druid". Don't worry you will not loose your C: drive and 2G is plenty for Red Hat. Note when you see "/boot hda1" DO NOT TOUCH THIS, this is your C: drive. But if you want to make things easier for yourself, you can use Partition Magic.

Sincerely,
cruznn

by galahad04

(Originally tried e-mailing, but got bounce error msgs back--will reconsider points if you could please reply to latest news.)

Ran into problems when I tried to install Linux today.

Basically, the problem is that when I attempted to install Red Hat 7.0 and establish the Linux partition using Disk Druid, Disk Druid had wanted to use the space on *both* my C: drive (2 GB) and D: drive (2 GB) partitions to set up the new Linux partition. I know this because in the same screenshot, Linux showed the preview of the resulting future Linux partition (labeled as "hda") as having a size of 4 GB (which should have been only 2 GB if it was using only the desired pre-existing D: partition). Therefore, I had to abort the installation because I did not want the Windows Me data on C: to be reformatted with Linux data. (I also tried to use fips.exe to try to set up a nondestructive partition on D:, but it displayed an error message saying something like "Cannot set up a partition on an extended partition.") Is there any way I can somehow tell Disk Druid to *disregard* C: drive and use *only* D: drive to set up the Red Hat 7.0 partition? Or will I need to obtain another computer to set up Linux on exclusively? If you could please reply at the earliest possible convenience, it would be deeply appreciated.

by mangonmd

Maybe with a third party utility, this MIGHT work. But the way it is now nothing good will come of this. Setting up Linux/Windows to dual boot is very simply. You should install linux first, windows second, and then reference the windows stuff toboot in LILO. My suggestion would be to check a product called vmware. Go to www.vmware.com it's a great product and just keeps getting better. There's vmware for windows and vmware for linux. I used to dual boot until I stumbled upon this, nowI'm running linux as my host OS and windows NTwrkstation, win2kpro as my guests. This is seriously probable your best bet because you won't need to re-install or re-partion anything. Your linux stuff will be a virual disk (a file) on your host machine.

by the dobc

Linux will have NO problem with your data. Even though Disk Druid says hda has 4Gb data, it will also show you existing partitions. HDA in Linux refers to the entire drive capacity. The partitions are refered to by their partition number (hda1 is the first primary partition, hda5 would be the first logical partition, etc...).
Just be careful when you select partitions, as you will need to remove the old fat partition that you no longer want. Since it is "D" in windows, it will probably be hda5in Linux. You can install to a fat drive, but in a fat 16 drive you will waste space, and slow down the OS considerably. If you want to be extra sure, delete all files in the "D" drive from windows, and when you run the RedHat installer, it will show you the partition sizes, and the available space in each. The one with the large amount of free space is the partition you want to remove.

by galahad04

When I ran Disk Druid, the program only referred to "hda" and did not bring up anything like "hdax" where "x" is a number like "5". Thanks for your suggestion though.

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