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ikarus 12-25-2006 12:04 AM

partiton tool fails on usb external drive
 
I'm trying to install the latest open SUSE on a 400gb external USB drive currently formatted with FAT32. The object is to have dual boot with any machine with a correctly enabled BIOS.

After starting the DVD the installer proposes a feasible partitioning regime for the external drive. However after an apparently successful attempt to re-size the existing windows partition on the external USB drive, it hangs with an error -"cannot use this partitioning tool, (PARTED), to edit partitions on this disk."

Now I am stuck with an external disk which is half its orriginal capacity and neither Windows, Partition Magic or PARTED in Linux is prepared to have anything to do with the apparent free space.( some 200GB)

My two questions are:

1. Is there any way I can recover my external disk capacity without loss of data?

2. Is it possible to achieve my goal to have SUSE linux installed on this drive as a boot device?

Regards
IK

syg00 12-25-2006 01:52 AM

Can't see why not - but then we are talking about Suse.
What does (as root) "fdisk -l" (that's a lower case ell) show ???

ikarus 12-26-2006 02:04 PM

partition tool fails on usb external drive
 
Disk /dev/sda: 400.0 GB, 400088457216 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 48641 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 22048 177092527 b W95 FAT32
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 22048 48641 213616274 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 22048 22309 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 22310 22571 2104483+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 22572 22833 2104483+ 83 Linux
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

Looks almost reasonable doesn't it? Well that's what UBUNTU live cd reports, but SUSE doesn't seem to like it

Any idea how I can get it to install on that?

Regards and thanks for reply
IK

syg00 12-26-2006 05:17 PM

Can't you simply use the partitions "as-is", and assign mount points duing the install ??. Most installers have an "expert" mode or similar.
I always install like this - never trust an installer, particularly a GUI.

If it were me I'd check that the primary and extended don't overlap - use "-u" on the fdisk list. Regardless, I'd be inclined to empty and delete that extended and reallocate on cylinder boundaries, just for peace of mind.
Oh, an FAT{32} ain't the most efficient filesystem - especially as it gets bigger. A couple of hundred Gig is a bit extreme IMHO.

ikarus 12-27-2006 02:45 PM

partiton tool fails on usb external drive
 
OK - GpartEd seems quite happy to handle this drive so IŽve made the sda1 group Linux EXT3 and swap. Now IŽll see how SUSE likes dem apples!

I take your point about the extended partition. It is a bit mucky so if it doesnŽt work IŽll start over.

Yeah - that big drive came ready formatted with FAT32 in its USB caddy. If I can get Linux going on it I will probably eat most of the fat away!

regards and thanks for the help.
IK

ikarus 12-28-2006 02:07 PM

SUSE 10.2 now working on the external drive. However I can only boot using the installation CD from where I can direct it to use the installed system.

BIOS is set to boot from USB but it takes no notice of it at boot time.

During istallation I told Yast to boot from my root partition on the USB drive.

How do I persuade the system to look here for my GRUB boot manager?

IK

BORELLI 01-13-2007 12:54 PM

Usb Boot Drive Mandriva
 
The Thing I've Been Working On Is Similar, But Installed The Usb Os From The Live Install And I've Gotten It To The Point Where It Tries To Mount Root But Won't Do It. Thus Kernel Panic. I Boot From Grub Without A Initrd Line. So I Think That Either My Root Partition Is Not Assigned As Root. Or The Kernel Isn't Finding Something It Wants There. It Just Won't Mount Darn It.

syg00 01-13-2007 03:01 PM

Presuming all the needed support is included in your kernel, try adding "rootdelay=10" to your bootloader kernel line.
USB can take some time to come ready.


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