About to give up [been trying for a week]

Well first of all, I wanted to create a partition for XP and Linux Debian to learn about linux.....

Well, then I download debian burn them to CD's Partition with PArtition magic 8 and it just messes up my hardrives... I read there guides and do everything :S It messes everything up and i just have to end up reformatting C:\ to windows xp again.. It says all this weird junk in the debian installation and I hear different from to many different people it just confuses me...

There is no way im going to be able to figure this out with these 1 on 1 post.

If someone could please allow me to add them to there msn so they could help me 1 on 1 I would love it so much. This is so fustrating, and I want to start learning linux, and what it can offer for me, but I cant all this is confusing me and not working.

So If anyone is familar with partitioning a hardrive with xp/linux please add my msn @ prompt@gmail.com I need some help badly

I would highly recommend trying out Knoppix or Mepis instead of Debian. In both cases, you can run them straight off of the CD, even without any hard drive present.

Then, once you're familiar with it a little bit, you can install onto the hard drive. Both are Debian based, so your hard drive install is essentially Debian.

Even if you decide to go with a standard Debian install, Knoppix can be helpful as a recovery CD or as a tool to partition the hard drive before doing your Debian install.

I have tried out knoppix, partitioing my hardrive is the major issue, and how to burn these damn debian CD's.. I have tried about everything, and it is the most fustrating thing I have ever done... I even burned 7 CD's of debian to find out that I burned them wrong :S.


I need help partitioing with win xp/linux (Dual boot)

I desperately need help

Edit: also I think I have wiped out my hardrive about 15 times (literally) trying to do this

agreed with the above poster

as for using partition magic... typically in my experience, it shouldn't mess things up; there is an update available for that program, but i am guessing it is otherwise just a problem with your harddrive's data

before doing any partitioning, do a disk defrag in windows as well as a scandisk (thorough); then install partition magic and tell it to simply reduce the size of your windows partition (but don't have it create new linux partitions); don't use the install new os wizard

also, debian is supposed to be relatively difficult to install... a similar distro is slackware and you should consider that

If you still have a (working) Knoppix CD lying around, use THAT instead of all those Debian CDs. First, boot up Knoppix. Then, open up a console window and type in:

sudo knoppix-installer

Choose a "debian style" install to get a Debian install.

The first thing it will want you to do is partition the drive if it doesn't already see the partitions it wants. It opens up QTParted--a graphical Partition Magic lookalike--and you have to use it to create the partitions it wants.

As per the instructions it gives you, make a 512meg SWAP partition and make an EXT3 partition of at least 2.5gigs in size. (Maybe 5gigs is nice and comfortable).

Originally posted by TheOneAndOnlySM before doing any partitioning, do a disk defrag in windows as well as a scandisk (thorough)

yea this step is really critical....you can partition your hard drive successfully, but then you wont be able to install anything on the new partition if there were any kind of errors on the disk

Originally posted by evrae I have tried out knoppix, partitioing my hardrive is the major issue, and how to burn these damn debian CD's.. I have tried about everything, and it is the most fustrating thing I have ever done... I even burned 7 CD's of debian to find out that I burned them wrong :S.

Be glade that the sarge release isn't out yet. It's probably going to end up around 14 CDs.

How is your hard drive partitioned at the moment?

The whole point of this post was to get one on one help as I said in the first post.. These replys dont really help it all because there are to many questions to ask and thingsI cant explain in a simpl message like this.

Originally posted by evrae The whole point of this post was to get one on one help as I said in the first post.. These replys dont really help it all because there are to many questions to ask and thingsI cant explain in a simpl message like this.

Well, I'm sorry if you haven't received responses to your liking yet here at LQ, but then again, unclear explanations are unclear explanations, regardless of the format, and if you say you can't explain things clearly in an LQ post, I'm not sure why an IM would change that condition. Based on what you''ve written, Yes, I understand you're frustrated, but we've all been there, and sometimes just stepping away for a few moments, relaxing, and then taking the time to really write carefully will make a huge difference.

If your main question is how to set up a dual boot XP/Linux machine, I would encourage you to do 2 things: First, use the Search function here at LQ to locate existing threads covering the topic "dual boot". This is an extremely common question, and there's tons of advice on how to do it. Surely at least some of the posts here would contain useful information. Secondly, if an LQ search fails, use Google. Google search results on Linux topics often come back with links to LQ, but again, there is no shortage of good and useful info on how to set up a dual boot system.

Good luck with the project. -- J.W.

Every problem leads to another with linux it seems. I download the files from one of the mirrors @ http://debian.org. After that I burned the files to the CD-R as an ISO. After that I realized that I would need to partition my hardrive, and make it a dual boot with windows xp/debian so if I get stuck or am unable to connect to the internet with debian I can login to windows xp and get the help needed. Then I get partition magic 8 and follow the instructions, and I stick the first debian CD in. After that It has some error messages in DOS. So I restart the computer, and get an error message like unable to find etc. Then I re-install windows xp and attempt to do it again. Same stuff happens.. After that I tried using fdisk it said that I cannot create a partition over like 5 mb and I said to my self linux is way way over that file size so this wont work.. I take the CD out, and restart boot up to windows clueless, and fustrating again. Then I search and read more stuff on the internet and get told a million different things by a million different articals and people. Right now I am clueless how to partition my hardrive so that it will actually work.

Thanks for reading,
Matt

@J.W. - I do read around the forums and search for topics. Everything I read says something different nothing is ever alike and I am clueless which way to go, or if I have that or dont.

I don't know if you can use fdisk in WinXP (I heard formatting and stuff is way different than in WInme which I'm running) but http://fdisk.radified.com/ a tutorial which thought me everything to get the partitioning done for the windows and linux part of the hd.

Here's the tutorial I used to install Debian. http://www.linux.org/lessons/beginner/index.html
However when you're installing debian you need to partition this drive a bit further (the tutorial gives only small directions). Debian has it's own partition program which IMO looks a bit like fdisk so that tutorial is nice even if you can't use it at first. I don't know what the debian program's called so I can't search for a tutorial for that one, sorry.

From googling a bit it looks like you can partition with the WinXP CD:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;313348

BTW IMs tend to be very messy if you need to explain things. I recommend using google and search for what you need, like now partitioning winxp and read a bit about it. Then ask specific questions on what's not working so we have more idea on what your problem really is

Originally posted by evrae After that I tried using fdisk it said that I cannot create a partition over like 5 mb and I said to my self linux is way way over that file size so this wont work..

So you can use fdisk IIRC when you run fdisk it will ask if you want to use large hard drive support, you need to enable that.

I don't know if you want to completely erase everything again but then you could format your HD and create 2 (1 for windows and 1 for debian) partitions and use the Debian installer to partition the Debian part of the hd. The tutorial on fdisk I mentioned above has extensive information and directions on it and it taught me everything I needed to get the partition stuff working. So I recommend reading it and ask if you can't figure out anything.

Why not just buy another small hard drive from a computer show or local PC guy. A 2 to 4 GB drive should not cost more than $20.

1 Do a clean XP install.
2 Physically switch drives.
3 Do your Debian install using no bootloader option.
4 Switch drives again.
5 Boot XP and then edit XP's boot loader to reflect one XP install and one Linux install-

http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;q289022

Remember the first partiton of the first drive is labled 0 and the second partiton as 1 (and so on). Same goes with the actual drive itself. First physical drive is 0, second is 1 and so on. Here is an example of my modified bootloader as explained in the link above-

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
C:\="Microsoft Windows"

In this instance I have 98 (labled windows) on the first partition on the first drive and XP (labled Microsoft Windows XP)on the second partition of the second drive. You would need to modify the drive/partition numbers to match your config as well as use different names for the O/S's.

6 Install both drives-XP jumpered as master, Debian as slave.

it might work, at least that is what I would try

Jimi_l

evrae - we try to avoid having people take their problems off-line as it doesn't help anyone coming along behind you with the same problem. It also has the potential to leave us with empty threads.

To paraphrase and add to the above suggestions:
01. Download your isos - if you have a quick (cable/dsl) connection, you only need to get disk 1. Debian does most of the install over the internet.

02. Verify your iso is ok. If the disk image hasn't come down cleanly, even if it burns you will likely end up with either a shiny coaster or with a damaged installation.

03. Burn your iso(s) to cd. Check the instructions in the link - there may be a peculiarity for your piece of software. Ensure you don't simply copy the iso image to disk, but actually burn the files correctly.

04. Using Partition Magic, resize your XP install. Only set PM to resize the disk - this will leave you with free space on your hard disk (ensure you leave enough for the installation and for future expansion, downloads, file creation, program installs, etc). Do not use PM to create a Linux disk format - the installation of Debian will do this.

05. Put the disk in the cd drive and reboot, when the pc comes up again enter your BIOS with whatever key your system needs and set the pc to boot from cd.

06. Install. Use the Debian Installation Manual so you know what you are doing. In fact, I'd recommend you thoroughly read and understand it beforehand. Personally, the only successful Debian installation I have ever done was with Knoppix. never the full Debian install - but others have, so it must be just me

If the Debian install looks a little difficult or more than you want to go through (and there are a number of steps to take), use Isaackuo's suggestion and use a Knoppix disk to install Knoppix to hard drive. Once you've installed, you can change the sources in the sources list to point to Debian sources and you can dist-upgrade to turn Knoppix into Debian.

All of the suggestions above are good instructions and from personal knowledge I can say they will work.

Guide(s) to partitioning:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...icle&artid=121
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ticle&artid=41
for info/reference.

Not to confuse you even more. But are you sure you want Debian?

When I very first started using linux i had NO IDEA what I was doing, never even formatted before. I had windows 98 and Mandrake 6.5, my 98 was preinstalled so i didn't have a CD for it. I didn't want to lose my 98 install. Well all I did was pop in my Mandrake CD and it did everything, partitioning, formatting, and installed lilo for a bootloader. Works great.

I still have that computer today, still Windows 98 but with Mandrake 9.2 now (upgraded a few times). All you need for mandrake is 1 or 2 CDs. And it handles NTFS partitions like Windows XP too.

Hope this helps.