[gentoo-user] dual booting windows 7, extended partitions, and the mbr

[gentoo-user] dual booting windows 7, extended partitions, and the mbr

[Allan Gottlieb]

I just bought a dell laptop with a single large (500GB) disk.

I find getting dell service is easier if I have windows installed
so I reinstalled windows from its original configuration of claiming all
the space to "just" 30GB.

However this uses three partitions

1.  A dell partition (I believe with diagnostics)
2.  The main windows 7 partition (c:)
3.  A recovery partition (made by windows)

I imagine I could arrange to have the recovery partition an extended
partition, but I am a windows novice so prefer to leave all of
windows as it was (except for having vastly reducing the size of #2).

I am now ready to install linux (and grub).
Can I have all of linux on extended partitions?  Something like

4.  Extended
5.  linux / (a logical partition inside the extended partition)
6.  linux swap (another logical partition)
7.  linux lvm2 partition (another logical partition)
8.  linux small vfat partition (logical)

I am mainly concerned about #5.  Googling reveals that you can boot
from a logical partition but the authors seem to recommend against
it (without saying why in detail).

Finally, can I install grub on the mbr *after* having installed windows 7?
With old windows systems this was bad; with vista it worked.

thanks,
allan

Re: [gentoo-user] dual booting windows 7, extended partitions, and the mbr

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:10:06 -0400, Allan Gottlieb wrote:

> I am now ready to install linux (and grub).
> Can I have all of linux on extended partitions?  Something like
> 
> 4.  Extended
> 5.  linux / (a logical partition inside the extended partition)
> 6.  linux swap (another logical partition)
> 7.  linux lvm2 partition (another logical partition)
> 8.  linux small vfat partition (logical)
> 
> I am mainly concerned about #5.  Googling reveals that you can boot
> from a logical partition but the authors seem to recommend against
> it (without saying why in detail).

Yes. My Linux only computers have no primary partitions, everything is on
logical partitions and has worked that way for many years without a
single issue.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

WinErr 012: Window closed - Do not look inside

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Re: [gentoo-user] dual booting windows 7, extended partitions, and the mbr

[Allan Gottlieb]

At Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:52:14 +0100 Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:

> On Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:10:06 -0400, Allan Gottlieb wrote:
>
>> I am now ready to install linux (and grub).
>> Can I have all of linux on extended partitions?  Something like
>> 
>> 4.  Extended
>> 5.  linux / (a logical partition inside the extended partition)
>> 6.  linux swap (another logical partition)
>> 7.  linux lvm2 partition (another logical partition)
>> 8.  linux small vfat partition (logical)
>> 
>> I am mainly concerned about #5.  Googling reveals that you can boot
>> from a logical partition but the authors seem to recommend against
>> it (without saying why in detail).
>
> Yes. My Linux only computers have no primary partitions, everything is on
> logical partitions and has worked that way for many years without a
> single issue.

Thank you.  That is just the endorsement I needed to go ahead.

allan

Re: [gentoo-user] dual booting windows 7, extended partitions, and the mbr

[Mick]

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On Tuesday 08 June 2010 12:47:37 Allan Gottlieb wrote:
> At Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:52:14 +0100 Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> > On Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:10:06 -0400, Allan Gottlieb wrote:
> >> I am now ready to install linux (and grub).
> >> Can I have all of linux on extended partitions?  Something like
> >>
> >> 4.  Extended
> >> 5.  linux / (a logical partition inside the extended partition)
> >> 6.  linux swap (another logical partition)
> >> 7.  linux lvm2 partition (another logical partition)
> >> 8.  linux small vfat partition (logical)
> >>
> >> I am mainly concerned about #5.  Googling reveals that you can boot
> >> from a logical partition but the authors seem to recommend against
> >> it (without saying why in detail).
> >
> > Yes. My Linux only computers have no primary partitions, everything is on
> > logical partitions and has worked that way for many years without a
> > single issue.
> 
> Thank you.  That is just the endorsement I needed to go ahead.

The first partition has FreeDOS I think and a couple of recovery tools.

The second partition *should* have a backup of the MSWindows OS _and_ the boot 
files.  If you less about with it you will probably find that your MSWindows 
OS does not boot anymore.

The third partition should have the MSWindows OS.

A quick check for finding a file called BCD and perhaps BCD_backup will show 
you which is the boot partition.


If you are still under warranty you may want to install GRUB in your Linux 
/boot partition not in the MBR and then copy an image of the boot partition 
record from the Linux /boot partition to a file in your MSWindows OS 
partition.  I have detailed how to chainload Linux from MSWindows in this 
thread:

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/226452/focus=226560

HTH.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] dual booting windows 7, extended partitions, and the mbr

[Allan Gottlieb]

At Sat, 12 Jun 2010 09:05:43 +0100 Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday 08 June 2010 12:47:37 Allan Gottlieb wrote:
>> At Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:52:14 +0100 Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
>> > On Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:10:06 -0400, Allan Gottlieb wrote:
>> >> I am now ready to install linux (and grub).
>> >> Can I have all of linux on extended partitions?  Something like
>> >>
>> >> 4.  Extended
>> >> 5.  linux / (a logical partition inside the extended partition)
>> >> 6.  linux swap (another logical partition)
>> >> 7.  linux lvm2 partition (another logical partition)
>> >> 8.  linux small vfat partition (logical)
>> >>
>> >> I am mainly concerned about #5.  Googling reveals that you can boot
>> >> from a logical partition but the authors seem to recommend against
>> >> it (without saying why in detail).
>> >
>> > Yes. My Linux only computers have no primary partitions, everything is on
>> > logical partitions and has worked that way for many years without a
>> > single issue.
>> 
>> Thank you.  That is just the endorsement I needed to go ahead.
>
> The first partition has FreeDOS I think and a couple of recovery tools.
>
> The second partition *should* have a backup of the MSWindows OS _and_ the boot 
> files.  If you less about with it you will probably find that your MSWindows 
> OS does not boot anymore.
>
> The third partition should have the MSWindows OS.
>
> A quick check for finding a file called BCD and perhaps BCD_backup will show 
> you which is the boot partition.
>
>
> If you are still under warranty you may want to install GRUB in your Linux 
> /boot partition not in the MBR and then copy an image of the boot partition 
> record from the Linux /boot partition to a file in your MSWindows OS 
> partition.  I have detailed how to chainload Linux from MSWindows in this 
> thread:
>
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.user/226452/focus=226560
>
> HTH.

Thanks.  Currently I am successfully chainloading windows from grub
loaded in the MBR.  My only problem is with the network under linux, but
that is another thread.

thanks again,
allan