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Old 11-12-2008, 01:37 PM   #1
IsharaComix
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Would like some Dual Boot Assistance


Hey everyone. Yeah, it's me again. The guy who never stops whining.

Today's issue: I want to REALLY dual boot Xubuntu 8.10 (not use Wubi like I've been doing). However, whenever I try to follow the guided partitioning and shrink the base Windows partition (sda3), it never gets to work on actually resizing the partition. I know its supposed to take a long time, but 20 minutes without it going up 1% is a little strange to me. Furthermore, my computer didn't make so much as a hum while the processor was spinning at 100%.

When I tried to shrink the partition from within Vista, it was a similar effect.

Is there something I'm not doing right? Besides running Vista, of course. Any ideas?
 
Old 11-12-2008, 01:44 PM   #2
brianL
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Have you defragmented your Windows partition? I've never used Vista, only XP, for dual-booting so I'm not sure if the same procedure applies. Try disabling the page-file, reboot, then defrag.
 
Old 11-12-2008, 01:59 PM   #3
IsharaComix
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How do you disable the page-file? I was trying to do that first, since it looked like that was what was stopping me in the first place. I was unable to find anything in the documentation.
 
Old 11-12-2008, 02:03 PM   #4
ronlau9
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Beside defrag what you should do if Vista is already running for sometimes are you sure that Vista is on SDA3
Same goes for me only use XP but mostly we start with Vista or XP so it in the beginning of the drive and that is
SDA1
 
Old 11-12-2008, 02:08 PM   #5
rokytnji
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Quote:
Originally Posted by IsharaComix View Post
How do you disable the page-file? I was trying to do that first, since it looked like that was what was stopping me in the first place. I was unable to find anything in the documentation.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2156185,00.asp
 
Old 11-12-2008, 02:19 PM   #6
IsharaComix
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I'm positive that vista is on sda3. I thought it was really weird too, but that's how it is. sda1 is an 86 MB partition with no file system that says it has an EISA configuration. sda2 is a 2.5 GB partition with no file system either, and it calls itself a primary partition, with no other factors. Neither of them have drive letters or labels.

Oh, and I just disabled the page file.

** Edit **
Hang on, I got those SD's wrong, here's the proper list

sda1 86 MB - no filesystem, EISA config
sda2 10 GB Dell Backup Drive
sda3 240 GB Vista Partition
sda5 2.5 GB - no filesystem

Last edited by IsharaComix; 11-12-2008 at 02:38 PM.
 
Old 11-12-2008, 02:51 PM   #7
brianL
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Defrag now, then try resizing again.
 
Old 11-12-2008, 02:54 PM   #8
IsharaComix
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Well, I think I've done it. Somehow or another, I resized the partition, and now I've got 100GB of free space.

Something else I did (I don't know if it helped), was I disabled my password protection over my hard drive. That might have done something.

Now my partition table is all out of order:

Code:
   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1          11       88326   de  Dell Utility
/dev/sda2              12        1317    10485760    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3   *        1317       17035   126255653+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4           17036       30402   107363708    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5           30075       30402     2620416   dd  Unknown
/dev/sda6           17036       29539   100438348+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7           29540       30074     4297356   82  Linux swap / Solaris
Is that a serious problem?
 
Old 11-12-2008, 03:28 PM   #9
syg00
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Nope - no-one will care. That sda5 is probably a "media" partition - Dell does things like that.
 
Old 11-12-2008, 03:43 PM   #10
IsharaComix
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OK. I've now got 100 GB of free space. Now installing should be easy, right?

Wrong.

I've tried two CDs, and neither one has worked, saying that it's an I/O error. The installation crashed both times at around the same spot. I'm going to try to download a new ISO and start over, and I'm only afraid that all of this reformatting has damaged those sectors of my hard drive.

I'm probably just overreacting, though. The burner told me some of the files on the CD might be corrupt.

I do have a question about the installation, now. I have to manually configure the Linux partitions when I install, because the guided partitioning wants to overwrite the whole hard drive, even when I tell it to only write in the free space.

What partitions am I supposed to make?
I know I'm supposed to make an ext3 partition and make it the mountpoint for /, and I know I'm supposed to make a swap partition. Does Grub have to be on it's own partition, or does it just put itself with the ext3 one?
 
Old 11-12-2008, 07:19 PM   #11
yancek
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Do the manual install, or expert mode whatever it's called with Xubuntu. You have the partitions to install Xubuntu already created (sda6) and the swap (sda7). It may want to format them again, particularly swap, so let it do it. You can create separate partitions for /home/, /user, etc... if you want but only need the / and swap. You can put grub in a separate boot partition but there isn't any need for it. Just install Grub to the root partition (sda6) and to the mbr when asked. It should create an entry for windows in the menu.lst file and give you the option to boot Xubuntu as well as windows.

If you have other problems, just post with details. Good Luck!
 
Old 11-13-2008, 09:40 PM   #12
IsharaComix
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WOOOHOOO! I'm running 7 partitions on my machine, and two of them are Linux-related!

Thanks for all your help, folks. My Xubuntu Iso was corrupted, so a friend of mine gave me his Ubuntu 8.10 CD. It installed in less than 20 minutes! Now I'm running Linux on the true hard drive.

It's been a long road, but things are finally looking up for me. I've got the great community of LQ and my close friends to thank for all of this. But I'm not done yet. I've only moved into the Free Software Community.

Now it's time to get busy working to give back to them!

Thanks again, folks. Your help is appreciated far more than you know.
 
Old 11-13-2008, 10:30 PM   #13
claudius753
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If you liked the Xubuntu desktop better, you can easily get to it by installing the "xubuntu-desktop" package, and the next time you log in you can change your session to "Xfce4" instead of gnome, or if you want to try KDE you can also install "kubuntu-desktop".
 
Old 11-14-2008, 03:16 AM   #14
brianL
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Glad you got it going.
 
Old 11-16-2008, 05:55 PM   #15
IsharaComix
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I know I said I was going to shut up, but something's bugging me now.

Here's what my partition table looks like:
Code:
Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x58000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1          11       88326   de  Dell Utility
/dev/sda2              12        1317    10485760    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3   *        1317       17035   126255653+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4           17036       30402   107363708    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5           30075       30402     2620416   dd  Unknown
/dev/sda6           17036       29071    96679138+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7           29072       30074     8056566   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order
sda3 is the partition holding Vista, and sda6 is the one holding Ubuntu. If Grub is in sda6, why is sda3 flagged as the boot partition? If I ever choose to erase all of those partitions (1-5), what will happen when I delete the one flagged as bootable?

I just don't ever stop, do I? XD
 
  


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