...what will follow is a somewhat lengthy account of this nOOb's failed attempt to install suse 8.2 on his computer yesterday...hopefully, some of u will be able to help me out...

at present I have 5 (!) partitions on my disk (a really long story, one I don't want to discuss - this will be changed within the next couple of months)...the important thing is that I left D: (5GB) reserved for linux...

ok, in the 2nd stage of Linux installation YaST 2 suggests how partitioning should be done on my comp:
-Create swap partition 125.5 MB on /der/hda9
-Create root partition 784.3 MB (/der/hda 10 with raiser)
-set mount point of /dev/hda 1 to /windows/C
-set mount point of /dev/hda 5 to /windows/D
etc.

This very probably wouldn't work, so I tried changing these settings and chose Create Custom Partition (I daren't use te Create Custom Partition for Experts)...here YaST 2 urges u to choose partitions that can be erased...I chose
n.2 5.0 GB HPFS/NTFS (/dev/hda5) and got this as a reply:


The highest number partiton is the unused disk space (below 1GB) which, I reckon, is not enough for a proper installation...if I try choosing both options I get a warning that the two disks are contiguous or sth (?!)...however, if I do chose the lattest option (the unused disk space) the installation programme is more than merry...

any suggestions what I should do...

I'd like to experiment a little with Linux before I re-install my computer...and it pisses me off that I have such problems already at this early stage of my Linux career...



cheers and many thanks ppl

Delete the d: drive in windows and then try again..

You should have enough unused disk space to install.

D: is empty ... it's 5GB big ...

should I format the empty drive?

D: is empty ... it's 5GB big ...

should I format the empty drive?

No, it appeared that the installer didn't want to delete the d: drive and linux can not be installed to a NTFS partition.

I havn't used SuSe in a while so I am unfamilar with the installer. So I can't help you through the steps but to create enough unused space you will need to delete the d: drive partition.

The best bet is *assuming the following is your situation"

You currently have 2 hard drive partitions in a win nt/2k/xp system
c: the primary hard drive and d: a secondary partition.
My suggestion is to resize the secondary partition. Assuming that the hard drive is NTFS i suggest getting a program call O&O defragmenter pro here http://www.voodoofiles.com/2479 . This program works great and is far superior to windows defragment. I'd defrag with the space option. Now the next step is to get ahold of a copyof partition magic 8 "for ease of use sake" and resize the second hard drive to open up an un allocated partition.
Meaning if the hard drive partition d was 20 gb and only 5 needed make it a 5 gb hd with that program and free up the 15 gb. Once that's done, i suggest suse or mandrake to install, both programs will install linux and creat your swap and resier partitions in the un used space. Suse 8.2 installs grub as the boot manager and it works great. I currently have something similar setup on my HP Laptop. Hope that helps.

I by no means support software piracy but if you need to get ahold of a copy of partition magic 8 there are a few search tools you can use such as www.ircspy.com but if you find an application usefull please pay for it ; )

Cheers Mate

Are you familiar with fdisk?, you may be able to erase the NTFS partition and then set it up to be a Linux partition, then Yast should have no problem to install SuSE ther, it is also recommended that you create a /boot partition, since you are going to dual boot win and SuSE.