Boot help
 

Hello, I want to install fedora on my netbook. Hope it will work fine on it.

I have only one hard drive which isn't partitioned. On that windows 7 starter is installed i.e only c hard drive is there.

I want to install fedora 17 now.

So can you please guide me in detail as to how to install fedora on that hard drive without deleting Windows.

Thank you
Praveer

Best place is from the source! Fedora 17 Installation Guide

I recommend getting the GParted live CD and using that to set up partitions. The first step will be re-sizing the Windows partition to make room for Linux.

Be sure to backup any important data first.

I would rather recommend to use the Windows partition manager to shrink your Windows partition and the let the Fedora installer just use the free space.
But you have to keep in mind that some manufacturers deliver the netbooks/laptops with already 4 primary partitions on the disk. In that case you will not be able to install anything on it without making major changes to your partition layout.

So I need to partition it? Won't the option shrink disk to make space for fedora work?

Shrinking the disk with Fedora is also partitioning. Yes, it will work that way, if you don't have already 4 primary partitions (in that case you simply wouldn't get that option), but I always trust the Windows partition manager more when it comes to shrinking Windows partitions.

I only have one primary partition that is drive c. No other partition there.

What you see in your file explorer does not have to be the same as what is on your disk. Almost any Windows 7 installation has a small boot partition and many netbooks/laptops have additional partitions with the manufacturer's tools and a recovery partition. Those partitions will not be displayed in the file manager. To make sure which partition layout you have you have to use a partition management tool, like the Windows partitioner or Fedora's partitioner (or GParted, fdisk, whatever).
This is of course not the case if you were the one that installed Windows 7 on it.

Well I installed windows as one that came pre installed got corrupted.

Then just go on, since my warnings don't apply to you.
Have fun with Fedora.

So I just use fedora partition manager?

So this is what I have to do.

1. I only have drive c when I visit my computer.

2. Make bootable USB and boot from it.

3. After fedora is loaded, I click install fedora option.

4. I choose during partition setup that ageing current drive to make space.

But as 100+ gb already there so why choose this option?

Sorry for asking so many questions but I am really doing it for first time.

Thanks

You could reduce the Windows volume first, as suggested on one of the previous post on the thread you could use the Windows partition manager and do that from windows, or use Gparted. Gparted comes available in many Linux distro's CDs I am not sure if Fedora includes it however it is easy to get. I gave 100GB to windows in my laptop and I used the rest 250GB for Linux

After you move your partitions I would suggest to reboot your computer to make sure that by re sizing and moving things around you still haven't damage anything else, and your computer still boot.
If you can boot normally still, then is a good time to back up all the files you don't want to risk. you never know.

Then you can proceed with the installation by booting from the USB and select install Fedora. You can a this point tell the installer to just use the available free space in the drive or you can manually layout a partition table in the partition you have allocate for Fedora.

Some people like to double the size of their RAM for swap, create a 15~20 GB for /root and the rest for /home.

Good luck to you

Do a backup before doing anything else. Partitioning is a system critical action. You should always make a backup before doing anything system critical (besides the fact that you should always have backups of your important data).

I am getting confused now :(

Please someone write in steps the procedure from starting to end.

Would really be grateful to whoever does it.

Regards
Praveer

1. Backup your important files.
2. Start the Windows partition manager and shrink your Windows partition to get free space for Fedora.
3. Reboot your machine to make sure that everything still works.
4. Boot from your Fedora CD/DVD, start the installer and follow the steps on the screen. Make sure to use the "Use the free space"-option (I don't know the exact name) when it comes to partitioning.
5. Done.

But is there any need to shrink hard drive? I mean the space on drive c is 250 GB and only say 50 GB is used. So space is there as it is.

Fedora needs its own partitions with Linux specific file-systems (you can't install Linux on NTFS partitions). You can't install it to your existing Windows partition without deleting the complete Windows system. So shrinking the partition is a needed step, yes.

Thanks. So windows won't be deleted yes?

If you shrink it with the Windows partitioner and choose the "use free space on the disk" option during the installation of Fedora it will not be deleted. If everything works as intended, in any case backup important data first.

Thanks a lot sir :)

And thanks to all who replied to my questions :)

Will update this thread when I have successfully installed fedora or if I encounter some problem :)

PraveerD,
Check out this dual boot site: http://members.iinet.net.au/~herman546/
Yes, it is about dual booting Ubuntu and Windows; but the partitioning steps involved will be essentially the same no matter what Linux distro you want to dual boot with Windows.
If you check out the tutorials that are listed down the left side of that site you will find several detailed tutorials for dual booting Ubuntu + Windows 7.

You need to make at least 2 partitions for Fedora, a root and swap partition.
You will need to shrink your C partition in order to create free space for Linux partitions.

Using a Parted Magic live CD is a very easy way to resize and create new partitions: http://partedmagic.com/doku.php
Using Fedora's partition tool would work fine as well.

Hi, thanks for the link. Can you please add me over IM to help me or via tv can you please guide me?

Would be really grateful to you.

To make bootable USB we need to format it to NTFS?

A bootable usb can be made using most any file system as far as I know. See this site for making bootable usb Linux systems:
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

Thank you :)

Using unetbootin it will format the drive for you.