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01-25-2010, 12:27 PM
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#1
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Jan 2010
Posts: 14
Rep:
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Partitioning for dual boot OpenSUSE and Windows 7
I have a 2 year old Acer laptop running Windows 7 from a 160 GB HDD. This is currently divided into C:/ for Windows and D:/ for data with two small hidden partitions for Acer Utilities and Windows reinstall.
I ran OpenSUSE v11.2 from a LiveCD and decided I would like to dual boot it with W7. I downloaded the full 4.2 GB OpenSUSE Install DVD and ran that as recommended. All went well until I reached the Partitioning stage where the Intelligent Partitioner refused to offer any option other than delete all the Windows partitions and create a single extended partition for OpenSUSE.
It offers (without option):
Delete Windows /dev/sda2 70 GB impossible to resize (25 Gb are free under W7)
Delete Windows /dev/sda3 70 GB although 40 GB are free
Create Extended /dev/sda2 140 GB
Create swap /dev/sda5 2 GB even though I have 4 GB RAM
Create Root /dev/sda6 20 GB ext4
Create Home /dev/sda7 115 GB ext4
The whole HDD is currently formatted to NTFS as a factory default.
Is their a way to resize sda2 and/or sda3 to install OpenSUSE as their is lots of free space available for this installation?
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01-25-2010, 01:16 PM
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#2
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Senior Member
Registered: Dec 2007
Location: In front of my LINUX OR MAC BOX
Distribution: Mandriva 2009 X86_64 suse 11.3 X86_64 Centos X86_64 Debian X86_64 Linux MInt 86_64 OS X
Posts: 2,369
Rep:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dunraven23
I have a 2 year old Acer laptop running Windows 7 from a 160 GB HDD. This is currently divided into C:/ for Windows and D:/ for data with two small hidden partitions for Acer Utilities and Windows reinstall.
I ran OpenSUSE v11.2 from a LiveCD and decided I would like to dual boot it with W7. I downloaded the full 4.2 GB OpenSUSE Install DVD and ran that as recommended. All went well until I reached the Partitioning stage where the Intelligent Partitioner refused to offer any option other than delete all the Windows partitions and create a single extended partition for OpenSUSE.
It offers (without option):
Delete Windows /dev/sda2 70 GB impossible to resize (25 Gb are free under W7)
Delete Windows /dev/sda3 70 GB although 40 GB are free
Create Extended /dev/sda2 140 GB
Create swap /dev/sda5 2 GB even though I have 4 GB RAM
Create Root /dev/sda6 20 GB ext4
Create Home /dev/sda7 115 GB ext4
The whole HDD is currently formatted to NTFS as a factory default.
Is their a way to resize sda2 and/or sda3 to install OpenSUSE as their is lots of free space available for this installation?
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My suggestion backup you're system first.
Defrag you're windows partition
Use the windows partitionner to shrink you're partition to make room for openuse.
Use in opensuse the expert or customize option to tell opensuse where to install
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01-25-2010, 03:47 PM
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#3
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Jan 2010
Posts: 14
Original Poster
Rep:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ronlau9
My suggestion backup you're system first.
Defrag you're windows partition
Use the windows partitionner to shrink you're partition to make room for openuse.
Use in opensuse the expert or customize option to tell opensuse where to install
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Seems a sensible way to proceed. I'll try it. No further posting means it worked! Thanks.
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01-25-2010, 04:28 PM
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#4
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Jan 2010
Posts: 14
Original Poster
Rep:
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Seemed a good idea. However it appears Intel architecture only allows 4 partitions on a single disk, if you want more then you have to change the whole disk to a virtual disk (if I understand the process). I already have 4 partitions on the HDD (see my original post) so any more would mean a very major shift in the way my system works. So it looks as if it won't work (and probably why the OpenSUSE partitioner refused to resize the partitions and only offered the option of deleting the Windows one's).
I suppose I could try adding a USB HDD but that would probably make the OpenSUSE slow - even if I could make it work that way.
If anyone has any further thoughts I'd appreciate hearing them.
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01-25-2010, 04:42 PM
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#5
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Senior Member
Registered: Mar 2004
Location: UK
Distribution: CentOS 6/7
Posts: 1,375
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Windows has a limitation in that it only uses physical partitions and will not deal with virtual/logical partitions, even in Windows 7 this appears to still be an issue and why Microsoft insists on this I do not know. You could try and use a live distro and DD off the Windows installation partition and Acer utility partitions on to something else. So that you can restore them if needs by via DD later on and reclaim those two potentially useful but rather idle partitions.
To note, DD is a unix/linux utility that will allow you to fully duplicate the partitions into an image file that you can then store else where.
Alternatively, if you want to use Linux, if your laptop has enough "power" (RAM and CPU) you could also just create a linux virtual machine with some visualization software, not the greatest solution to the problem, but it kind of gets around it. There are some free options around for it.
Last edited by r3sistance; 01-25-2010 at 04:47 PM.
Reason: Virtual Machines
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01-25-2010, 05:08 PM
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#6
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Jan 2010
Posts: 14
Original Poster
Rep:
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I've tried virtual machines before without total success. My laptop is a Intel 1.8 GHz Core2 Duo with 4 GB RAM so that works well but I find VM's to be less than reliable. I have tried Mint via it's Mint4Win facility and that does work well. However I really liked OpenSUSE and installed it on a very old IBM Desktop (2.8 GHz P4 with Hyperthread and 1 GB RAM) and that works very well dual booting with XP. So I thought I'd also like it on my laptop but that's proved much more of a problem finding a suitable way to install even though the Distro seems to work flawlessly from a LiveCD. Pity!
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01-25-2010, 08:27 PM
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#7
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Moderator
Registered: Mar 2008
Posts: 22,150
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Consider installing then to a USB flash drive. It will bridge the gap very well between live cd and VM's/dual boot.
I prefer VM's but have many usb installs. See pendrivelinux.com
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01-26-2010, 03:48 AM
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#8
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Member
Registered: May 2006
Location: Wirral
Distribution: Mepis, Mint, PCLinuxOS
Posts: 57
Rep:
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I've tried installing onto an external HDD. I accepted the OpenSUSE recommendations on partitioning and all seemed to go well with the system rebooting to OpenSUSE. However when returning to the system this morning I find I cannot boot into anything and Grub Stage 1.5 reports and error 21. This seems to indicate Grub may be on the external rather than internal drive. I can boot into W7 or OpenSUSE if I leave the original installation DVD in the laptop and select Boot from HDD option. Not a perfect solution but at least I can try to solve the problem. However booting via the DVD produces an unknown screen resolution and I cannot access the bottom menu icon - not my day I'm afraid.
I would have followed Jefro's flash drive suggestion if it had arrived before I tried the full USB HDD install. So I suppose I'd really now like to either (a) make the external HDD boot correctly or (b) uninstall the OpenSUSE from the Ext HDD and install it on a 32/64 GB Flash Drive. Any help on this?
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01-26-2010, 07:48 AM
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#9
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Senior Member
Registered: Dec 2007
Location: In front of my LINUX OR MAC BOX
Distribution: Mandriva 2009 X86_64 suse 11.3 X86_64 Centos X86_64 Debian X86_64 Linux MInt 86_64 OS X
Posts: 2,369
Rep:
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Did you change the boot priority after install in you're BIOS settings ?
If you do not change opensuse recommendations it means that opensuse install GRUB on hd0 which is the first boot able hd during installation .
That could be sda or sdb depending with drive was the first boot able drive during install
So if you have change it change it back than opensuse will boot up and we have to change the drive mapping in that way that windows will boot.
If you still have a problem post again
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01-26-2010, 09:23 AM
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#10
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Jan 2010
Posts: 14
Original Poster
Rep:
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I used YaST to amend the Bootloader (I did try Terminal and grub-install but OpenSUSE simple said this was unauthorised) and Grub should now be on sda2 (ie the Bootable Windows partition). Things are still not correct - Grub does now offer me the various alternatives of OpenSUSE and Windows 7 and choosing the OpenSUSE (default) option my system eventually boots but fails to display the normal Log-on screen. However if I right click and choose Log Out then the correct screen does appear after the Log Out has taken place. I can then Log In!
I also noted that after I'd run the LiveCD version of OpenSUSE (which I assumed would not alter any settings as it's all run from CD) my installed version on my ext USB HDD has changed to match what I tried on the LiveCD.
I suspect the best thing to do is to delete the OpenSUSE and Grub, return to my original Windows 7 set up, and then start again. But how do I remove Grub? I assume I can then simply delete the Linux partitions and resize from W7. After that I'd try the USB stick method which seems most suitable for my setup.
Last edited by dunraven23; 01-26-2010 at 09:25 AM.
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01-26-2010, 10:32 AM
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#11
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Senior Member
Registered: Dec 2007
Location: In front of my LINUX OR MAC BOX
Distribution: Mandriva 2009 X86_64 suse 11.3 X86_64 Centos X86_64 Debian X86_64 Linux MInt 86_64 OS X
Posts: 2,369
Rep:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dunraven23
I used YaST to amend the Bootloader (I did try Terminal and grub-install but OpenSUSE simple said this was unauthorised) and Grub should now be on sda2 (ie the Bootable Windows partition). Things are still not correct - Grub does now offer me the various alternatives of OpenSUSE and Windows 7 and choosing the OpenSUSE (default) option my system eventually boots but fails to display the normal Log-on screen. However if I right click and choose Log Out then the correct screen does appear after the Log Out has taken place. I can then Log In!
I also noted that after I'd run the LiveCD version of OpenSUSE (which I assumed would not alter any settings as it's all run from CD) my installed version on my ext USB HDD has changed to match what I tried on the LiveCD.
I suspect the best thing to do is to delete the OpenSUSE and Grub, return to my original Windows 7 set up, and then start again. But how do I remove Grub? I assume I can then simply delete the Linux partitions and resize from W7. After that I'd try the USB stick method which seems most suitable for my setup.
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If you have not change the suggestion done by opensuse than GRUB was installed at the MBR of HD0
To overwrite the GRUB in MBR you need the rescue mode of the windows
cd or dvd. I do not use windows but I think the procedure is start op
from you're windows cd or dvd goto to the rescue mode give the command fixmbr and fixboot .
But there are a lot of threads about this issue so search for it
NO you can not just delete the opensuse partition because than Nothing will boot
Last edited by ronlau9; 01-26-2010 at 10:33 AM.
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01-26-2010, 10:38 AM
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#12
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Member
Registered: May 2006
Location: Wirral
Distribution: Mepis, Mint, PCLinuxOS
Posts: 57
Rep:
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Thank you all for the help. Yes I can replace the mbr (and therefore Grub) using the W7 install DVD using the <bootsect/nt60 C:\> command from the Repair option. I shall do that and then try installing OpenSUSE on a USB Stick.
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