openSuse 11 dual boot with XP
 

Hi all,


I tried to install openSuse 11 from it's bootable DVD
it finds my XP partition (suggesting to mount it as /windows/C

however in the Boot options section (at the end of the installation process) it only lists OpenSuse, Floppy and OpenSuse safe
XP is not mentioned
I therefore aborted the installation as I want to make sure I can still boot in XP

how can I make sure I can still boot in XP,what shoud I do next ?


Kr
Martin

I can't give a definitive answer to your question but it may be that Grub doesn't list windows because it doesn't actually boot but chainloads, meaning it points to another bootloader (windows). I recently installed opensuse and it automatically detected my windows partitions. You should be safe but if you prefer to wait for something definitive, I would suggest another option of downloading SuperGrubDisk. Just google for it, it is a small download and repairs windows and Linux boot problems.

Since it found your xp partition during install, it will likely succeed, but backup and important data.

thx for your swift reply

however the partition manager from openSuse is really incomprehensible I feel

even though my RAID controller is disabled in the BIOS
it wants to create a partition RADI0 of 300GB (I have 2 identical disks of 160GB)
since I don't want that
I tried lots ofthings, in the end I resized a disk under XP
(left the partition unformatted)
told the installer to use that to install
it proposes a swap partition, a linux and a home partition
this all gooes fine, until the installer tries to format
the first partition (2GB SWAP), it gives error -3008
unable to format SWAP partition, resource or device is busy
after that the installation aborts

what to do now ?


Kr
Martin

If you're having difficulty with the Opensuse partitioner, you might try downloading Parted Magic, it has a graphical interface, works well and is easy to understand.

Also, you probably don't need a swap partition. Swap partitions were used when computers had less RAM so if you have 1GB or more you should not need it. Did you create unformatte partitions before the install or was it listed as unallocated space? It might be easier if you create your partition before doing the install. The reason for creating a root partition and a home partition separately is that if you update your system, it doesn't affect the data on the separate home partition.

Not sure if about the RAID thing and don't know what effect that might have, never used it.

Thx,

Parted Magic did the trick for me
finally I got everything up and running