Thanks abisko00, I'll let you know how it goes... :-)

UPDATE: I'm good to go!

The install went fine, and I'm even writing this post from SuSE... I feel so freeeee!

To recap what I did, in case it's useful for anyone:

(1) I resized my Windows XP partition using BootIT NG. I did not install BootIT NG, rather I booted from its cd, clicked cancel when asked if I wanted to install it, clicked ok when it told me I was going into maintenance mode, and then clicked on the Partition Work icon. From there I just followed the prompts and then told it what size I wanted my partition. I shrank my XP down from 28 GB to 17 GB, leaving me with 11 GB of free space. I then exited the BootIT program, and restarted my computer.

(2) I checked to make sure Windows was still breathing... gave it some bread and water, and then rebooted (can't let it just die... that would be cruel and unusual punishment, even for M$... everyone has rights I suppose), placing my SuSE 9.1 personal installation cd in the drive so I could boot up with it on restart.

(3) Upon restart, I pressed F10 for boot options (my computer defaults to booting from the hard drive, so before SuSE was installed I had to interrupt the boot up manually). I pressed ENTER to boot from cd, and then basically just followed the SuSE installation instructions, intervening to do the parted fix, as outlined in the link at the beginning of this thread.

(4) I only got one error message during installation, where SuSE told me that it had an error creating my swap partition. But later I went back to BootIT NG to see what my partitions looked like, and I now have three (3):

MBR Entry 0 -- 17304 MB -- HPFS/NTFS
MBR Entry 1 -- 1004 MB -- Linux Swap/Solaris
MBR Entry 2 -- 10307 MB -- Linux Native

I do get a "failed" message saying "Unable to find swap space signature" when I boot SuSE, but I'm not sure what that's about.

(5) The real test came after installation when I shut down SuSE and rebooted to WinXP. Not a problem at all. Except for feeling like it had lost a considerable amount of weight ), XP (SP2 even) seemed to be healthy.

(6) And SuSE was still there when I went back... success!!

Thanks to everyone who helped me out, either directly or through their informative posts!

aus9:
My sys was hit by the "parted" bug and did a lot of looking around for a cure. There are several out there including one from SuSE that didn't work for me. They (SuSE) know about it, applied a quick but partial solution, but kept mum about it. Questions that are hard to find answers for are:
1. What issues of SuSE 9.1 are buggy and which are OK ?
2. Have the online updates cleared the bug? Need to magic marker my original DVD and CD's that they contain a buggy parted program for future ref.
Haven't found out much on these questions. Still haven't fixed it since I down't have a MS XP CD as sys came OEM preloaded which is a problem. I need to be real cautious here.

Paul_E_T

I dont use suse or XP so can not help.

me thinks most have solved the parted bug by either getting the latest kernel or ensuring they use an independent partition tool not of the type reported as being suspect.

I have been looking at another post dealing with someone using a MS program to fix a linux partition info and I would not recommend that either.

my understanding of MS licence is you are entitled to a cd and the product code. contact your OEM and get a copy off them and if they refuse go to your country consumer protection and see if they can negotiate the cd.

good luck

I have an eMachines box that comes with 2 restore cd's (no XP cd)

I really want to try Suse 9.1 pro on that computer but my wife will kill me if I wreck her Windows games etc....

The restore cd's look for a special file when you re-boot to restore your XP...

Does anyone know if this file will get screwed by when I install Suse ???

Thanks in advance

Rob

Rob

SuSE can be installed without problems if you follow the very first post in this thread. You need to download the parted fix and apply it during the first steps of the SuSE install.

If you are still not confident, use Norton Ghost and back up everything on the Windows partition first.

Kix

Thanks....I'll give it a try and post the results...

Rob

I am new to Suse I might be posting in the wrong section ..
But I d/l Suse 9.1 everthing loaded ok but HOW DO I INSTALL OTHER PROGRAM THAT ARE *.EXE
when I double click it it ask me what program do I wnat to RUN the *.EXE file what am I doing wrong .

Yes, you are You would do better opening up a new thread. But to give a quick help: you may open such files with wine, because they are windows executables.

But again: we shouldn't have the discussion here.

Sorry for the long delay in responding.....my XP machine needed a new motherboard and since it was under warranty ....I took it to Futureshop for repairs and just got it back...

Anyways.....I haven't had the intestinal fortitude to try a dual boot with the Suse 9.1 after reading all the posts so am going to stick with my Redhat 9 with the latest kernel installed on my old Windows 98 machine....

It runs really nice and will do until my XP machine takes a major crash at which time I will install the Suse 9.1 as the one and only on that computer...

Thanks for all the help and advise....

Rob

Does this patch or fix apply to SuSE 9.2 as well? For some reason after installing windows XP, then installing SuSE, my installation is not going well. I get an error during the reboot of the SuSE install.

I believe it is nskernel.dll not found....

Hi mikedeatworld:

I posted the question here earlier but no answers. I then sent an email to SuSE folks (US) but they did not reply. So I cannot really give you a good answer. I have SuSE 9.2 sitting here in a box but will not install it, recommend it, or get anymore SuSE products until something is said about the parted problem. I'm going over to Debian or Mandrake and canning SuSE.

I read a post elseware that said the parted problem started in a Redhat issue and was passed on by SuSE when they used the Redhat parted program. The SuSE solution did not work for me either and I'm not very happy about it since SuSE doesn't seem to care about us users. The just let them (us users) hang out there is a bad attitude.

The best thing to do is to partition your HDisks with a Windows 98 or ME program ( or another partition program) that does not have a partition problem. Change one of the partitions to a FAT32 partition that will be used to transfer files/data between Win NT and Linux until read/write NT from Linux matures. Make the other partitions NTFS and Linux. Now one can save files from XP NTFS to the FAT32 partition and then copy/write using Linux on the FAT32 partition for transfers.

I use FAT32 on another box to send files for printing in Windows. Windows makes a great printserver/print conversion for Linux which has poor to nonexistant drivers for modern inexpensive printers.

Hope this helps and encourages you to use Linux.
Paul T.

if you want to install SuSE 9.0, 9.1 or 9.2 with any windows you take a dos boot disk and boot the machine. Next, take the second disk from a partition magic rescue diskette set and put it in the drive. Type "pqmagic" and partition magic will start. Put a primary unformatted partition of about 500 MB first for the root "/" of linux. Then make a primary swap partition of 1.5 x the system ram or 1 GB, whichever is bigger. Next, make logical partitions as you wish for /bin, /opt, /usr, etc - all unformatted. Finally, make a xp partition and format it in NTFS xp format.

Run windows install from the cd. If the dos boot disk you used to run partition magic has cdrom drivers you can just boot from it and put the xp cdrom in the drive and type"d:\i386\winnt". That is the install program for xp and 2k. Otherwise, reboot from the xp cd and run the install program. Install to the partition you formatted with NTFS. Last, install SuSE and grub will come up with Windows as an option when you start the machine after the SuSE install. It doesn't work this way if you install SuSE first, however.

Paul,

Sorry to hear you haven't gotten a reply from someone w/SuSe. Normally they are pretty prompt. Did you email the North American offices? They responded fairly quickly with my questions. Is this a Novell box set of cds?

oprogue.

Re: Post #74
oprogue

I sent the message to some staff fellow in SuSE US. The Box purchased was official SuSE retail. I just tried to install the 9.2 in a recent box (Compaq Deskpro EP/SB series). I've run into a similiar problem. This makes two boxes unusable from windows one XP and now ME. The recent problem just give me a B/W text page with "Boot _ " in the upper left hand corner of the screen that is frozen. No keyboard no mouse. Need to pull the plug to close. But got to the point where I can use rhe "repair" program to shutdown. I've just spent all day trying to get it up but no luck (no Win no Linux). I think the problem is that SuSE Linux does not do very much error checking. It trys to install without warnings. Want to see the spec's on the box ?
Paul T.