Adding Suse to XP Professional
 

I am still unable to add Suse 10.3 to the installed Xp on my HP 530 Notebook with 80GB.

The DVD runs well and will install Suse. But when I get to the partitioning it wants to reduce the XP partition, which I need at around 60GB.

If I want to refuse to install the sugeested partition size, then it tells me I have to be an expert, which I am not at all.

Is it not possible to simply tell the Suse installer to make the XP size 60GB?

I have tried a partitioning tool, and ended up having to re-install the whole XP, as I wrote in another thread....

The Link on the Wiki LQ is a dead end and on the munich support forum it says: Forums are down....

Where do I find installing instructions for my problems?

Thank you...

You do not need to be an expert. Suse just doesn't want to be responsible for lost data. Go into the advanced partitioning options and you should be fine as long as you don't delete the Windows partition. Remember, nothing changes until you press the "Install" button (or whatever it is called in Suse).

Basically, you just need to add one partition, format it with ext3 (something else is fine too), and specify that it's the / (root) partition. Linux installers typically handle the rest from there.

Your problem really isn't something difficult to solve.You should choose the expert option.Then all you have to do is to create two partitions with size that you want.Select this sign / as mount point for the partition that will hold your Linux and for another one(swap) you should use 1,5xRAM for size.For file system choose ext3 and you are done.Suse will detect Windows and give you an option to boot into it.

I think you need 3
1) swap
2) linux native for the os
3] Home



all the best

swap and /home partitions are nice, but not really necessary.

Yes,but it's better to have them.Swap especially,if RAM is low.

Thank you for your help.
I will try, but if you read all of your answers, you will understand, that I am not really a lot less confused... You gave me three different suggestions. And I am the only one here, who does not know how to decide which would make most sense....

My problem with computer advice has always been, that people who certainly know perfectly well what they are talking about, are always too hard to understand. You usually express yourself in a way, that only those will understand, who basically already know and would not ask the question in the first place!
In practical terms this means, that if I see the risk, that my XP will be gone once more, then I will simple cancel Linux once and for all.... While everyone knows about Microsoft's ways, and surely would be a lot happier to get rid of it, as long as there is no way to install Linux without problems like this, people will always have to stick with MS, as much as we might hate it.

I will follow the simplest way, with the one partition, and hope for the best.

Thank you all, Upageya

There will always be a risk of you doing something wrong and breaking Windows when installing Linux, especially if you have never done it before. The risk is always there because nothing can ever be foolproof, there will always be someone who doesn't read and just clicks around randomly.

Want problems? Install Windows after Linux, I can guarantee you are not getting back into Linux without some more work.

You will never learn if you never do it, we can tell you how to do it until our fingers ache, but if you never actually go through the entire process, you will never fully understand everything involved.

What I wrote ten minutes ago, is exactly what happens...

When I do as you write, I get the pop up saying: The partition for ext3 is too small. But, nowhere does it ask for the size I would want.
Where size is asked, it tells me: Start Cylinder is 9728, End is also 9728.
When I type in anything else, it tells me that this is not valid.
The value has to ne between 9728 and 9728. (This is not typing error!!) When I put in 9728, then it tells me it is too small, it needs to be at least 1o GB. That would be fine, I would even like 20, but when I do, I get the messsage: Not Valid...

It sounds like you need to shrink a current partition first to create room for the new one.

I have had Suse 10.1 for over 2 years now on another computer, where I also had Windows 98. Both worked perfectly fine, and I am sure 10.3 would also work perfectly fine on this new computer with the XP, but it will only leave 27GB for the XP. I need the XP bigger for an online TV recorder, an mp3 player and a camera, all of those are not supported by linux.
So I need to change the suggested partition, that would solve everything fast and simple.
I was simply hoping there is somewhere a space where I can replace the 27 with the 60 I want there....

Thank you for trying, Upageya

Make sure u have some free space in your hdd.If u dont have and want to remove some partition u can do this with remove option in advanced menu. This is very simple. And then select that free space, create new partion using ext3 and go ahead.

You see? That is exactly what I mean, when I write, that the help attempts are basically for people who already know...

How am I supposed to know that???

I tried this with a partition manager and created a 20 GB partition.
But Suse 10.3 did not install itself there. It split the reaming 60 GB which I wanted to keep for XP, and installed itself there.
Leaving even less space for XP.
At no time during the installation, did Suse ask where to install itself.
Suse 10.3 worked totally, but I ended up having two windows boot options, none of which could access the XP. Not being able to boot Windows at all, I had to install everything new.... Which is where I am now. There are about 50GB empty on the HDD, 20 of those I would like for Suse.

Thank you,
Upageya

There is only one partition on the hdd. It is 80 GB and it has about 30GB of XP and its data on it.
What happens when I go to the advanced menu is described three letters further back.... there are no partitions to be removed. I completely wiped the hdd before re-imstalling the XP...

Thanks again, Upageya

There is no resize option at all in the Suse partition manager? I've never used it personally, but I find that unlikely. Did you read the installation documentation? It should have covered this.

The easiest way to do this, would have been to plan ahead, partition before installing XP. Which can be done in the Windows installer. I know this isn't a good option at this time, but it is something to consider in the future.