[gentoo-user] dual boot install advice

[gentoo-user] dual boot install advice

[James]

Hello,

Once again, I'm installing  several amd64 systems with dual boot XP.
I always have to nuke the XP, reformat, leave sda1 for XP and continue
on with the install. Since I am installing Gentoo first (amd64 livedcd)
is there any things to watch out for, when I go back and put XP on the sda1
partition?

I seem to only get this right about 50% of the time.  I guess when I put XP
on the sda1 partition, I need to keep it from writing to the MBR, or have
a recovery method? Maybe a recovery floppy to restore the MBR if XP writes
over it?

No matter what I try, I seem to have a knack for getting it right on the
second or third attempt.


comments and advice are welcome. Resizing the XP partitioning (NTFS) without
reformatting nevers seems to work for me.

James



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[gentoo-user] Re: dual boot install advice

[James]

James <wireless <at> tampabay.rr.com> writes:

> Once again, I'm installing  several amd64 systems with dual boot XP.
> I always have to nuke the XP, reformat, leave sda1 for XP and continue
> on with the install. Since I am installing Gentoo first (amd64 livedcd)
> is there any things to watch out for, when I go back and put XP on the sda1
> partition?

Well, I know it's not kosher to answer your own emails, but here's what I did
for lack of a smoother proceedure.

1. Use livedCD to reformat the entire drive. NTFS is formated onto the first
partition sda1.
2. Use the remainder of the disk for Gentoo, reiserfs.
3. Continue on with the livedcd install, using the amd64 binaries
on the disk; quick and easy.
4. Reboot the system with XP (do not use recovery CD) in the cdrom drive. 
5. Install XP in the NTFS (sda1) partition; leave the NTFS formating 
performed during the LiveCD installation process (never trust Microsoft
with disk formatting.

6. Since it will now only boot XP, I load the liveCD for AMD64 into the CDrom
and reboot.
7. Boot up the livecd and fire up a terminal session.
8. go root (sudo su).
9. mkdir /mnt/temp
10. mount /dev/sda2  /mnt /temp (location of /boot partition).
11 run grub  'grub'
   a. grub> root (hd0,1)
   b  grub> setup (hd0)
   c  grub> quit

Just like the handbook. I had to use 'hd' even though the drive is an
sd (sata) drive with grub......

I wish there was a smoother way to perform dual boot installs?

Hope this helps somebody else....it works for me. and is now fairly
mechanical....

James




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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: dual boot install advice

[Iain Buchanan]

On Thu, 2006-12-07 at 04:10 +0000, James wrote:
...

why can't you install xp first? (I only trust windows when formatting
ntfs btw :)

so long as xp installs into a partition smaller than the total disk
size, then install linux second, let it overwrite the mbr in the
process, and voila! dual boot!

at least that's how I do it...
-- 
Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au>

I married beneath me.  All women do.
		-- Lady Nancy Astor

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: dual boot install advice

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

On Thursday 7 December 2006 05:10, James wrote:

> > Once again, I'm installing  several amd64 systems with dual boot XP.
> > I always have to nuke the XP, reformat, leave sda1 for XP and
> > continue on with the install. Since I am installing Gentoo first

Maybe I missed something, but why do you have to nuke XP in the first 
place? Can't you just use qtparted or any other tool to resize the 
windows partition and then go on with the gentoo install?
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: dual boot install advice

[Mick]

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On Thursday 07 December 2006 08:47, Etaoin Shrdlu wrote:
> On Thursday 7 December 2006 05:10, James wrote:
> > > Once again, I'm installing  several amd64 systems with dual boot XP.
> > > I always have to nuke the XP, reformat, leave sda1 for XP and
> > > continue on with the install. Since I am installing Gentoo first
>
> Maybe I missed something, but why do you have to nuke XP in the first
> place? Can't you just use qtparted or any other tool to resize the
> windows partition and then go on with the gentoo install?

That's how I usually go about it on new machines.  I can't be a*sed with 
wasting time on installing WinXP and the resizing/rebooting takes the whole 
lot of 15-20 minutes on a slow machine/large drive.

It doesn't matter if WinXP rewrites the boot code on the MBR, as the OP said a 
Linux LiveCD is all you need to reinstall Grub in the MBR.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] dual boot install advice

[maxim wexler]

> 
> comments and advice are welcome. Resizing the XP
> partitioning (NTFS) without
> reformatting nevers seems to work for me.

My method is to boot the linux cd and partition the
drive but I don't format the 1st one. Then boot the XP
cd and install it to the first partition _then_ boot
the linux cd again and install linux onto the rest. I
like to include a fat partition to allow ease of
access from linux to XP. 

HTH, Maxim


 
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[gentoo-user] Re: dual boot install advice

[James]

Etaoin Shrdlu <shrdlu <at> unlimitedmail.org> writes:

> > > Once again, I'm installing  several amd64 systems with dual boot XP.
> > > I always have to nuke the XP, reformat, leave sda1 for XP and
> > > continue on with the install. Since I am installing Gentoo first

> Maybe I missed something, but why do you have to nuke XP in the first 
> place? Can't you just use qtparted or any other tool to resize the 
> windows partition and then go on with the gentoo install?


That or many other methods never seem to work for me. XP is spread
out all over the disk and the recovery partition is very difficult to
deal with too. 


James



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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: dual boot install advice

[Mick]

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On Friday 08 December 2006 00:13, James wrote:
> Etaoin Shrdlu <shrdlu <at> unlimitedmail.org> writes:
> > > > Once again, I'm installing  several amd64 systems with dual boot XP.
> > > > I always have to nuke the XP, reformat, leave sda1 for XP and
> > > > continue on with the install. Since I am installing Gentoo first
> >
> > Maybe I missed something, but why do you have to nuke XP in the first
> > place? Can't you just use qtparted or any other tool to resize the
> > windows partition and then go on with the gentoo install?
>
> That or many other methods never seem to work for me. XP is spread
> out all over the disk and the recovery partition is very difficult to
> deal with too.

You'll need to defrag & reboot a couple of times using the Administrative 
Tools/Disk Manager for the job before you shrink the WinXP partition.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: dual boot install advice

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Fri, 8 Dec 2006 00:13:30 +0000 (UTC), James wrote:

> That or many other methods never seem to work for me. XP is spread
> out all over the disk and the recovery partition is very difficult to
> deal with too.

You need to defrag the Windows partition (from Windows) before resizing
it.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

RISC: Reduced Into Silly Code

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: dual boot install advice

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Fri, 8 Dec 2006 08:29:23 +0000, Mick wrote:

> You'll need to defrag & reboot a couple of times using the
> Administrative Tools/Disk Manager for the job before you shrink the
> WinXP partition.

Also, Windows puts something in the middle of the partition, so you can
only shrink it by just under 50%. To shrink more you have to defrag in
Windows again, then you can get another 50%.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Definition of Trust: Two cannibals having oral sex.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: dual boot install advice

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

On Friday 8 December 2006 01:13, James wrote:

> That or many other methods never seem to work for me. XP is spread
> out all over the disk and the recovery partition is very difficult to
> deal with too.

Ah ok, that was not clear to me, and also I did not know that you had a 
recovery partition. In this case, as the others said, you need to defrag 
before doing anything (although maybe partition magic *might* be able to 
sort things out by itself, but I'm not sure, and it's commercial 
software).
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: dual boot install advice

[Iain Buchanan]

On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 13:26 +0100, Etaoin Shrdlu wrote:
> On Friday 8 December 2006 01:13, James wrote:
> 
> > That or many other methods never seem to work for me. XP is spread
> > out all over the disk and the recovery partition is very difficult to
> > deal with too.
> 
> Ah ok, that was not clear to me, and also I did not know that you had a 
> recovery partition. In this case, as the others said, you need to defrag 
> before doing anything (although maybe partition magic *might* be able to 
> sort things out by itself, but I'm not sure, and it's commercial 
> software).

Even though Partition Magic is commercial, it is one of the few pieces
of software I'd happily buy.  In my experience, it's had no trouble
resizing WXP partitions to make way for linux.

cya,
-- 
Iain Buchanan <iaindb at netspace dot net dot au>

senility, n.:
	The state of mind of elderly persons with whom one happens to disagree.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: dual boot install advice

[Peter Ruskin]

On Sunday 10 December 2006 04:32, Iain Buchanan wrote:
> Even though Partition Magic is commercial, it is one of the few
> pieces of software I'd happily buy.  In my experience, it's had
> no trouble resizing WXP partitions to make way for linux.

IMHO Acronis Disk Director is better (and cheaper!).

-- 
Peter
========================================================================
Gentoo Linux: Portage 2.1.2_rc3		kernel-2.6.18-gentoo-r3
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+	gcc(GCC): 4.1.1
KDE: 3.5.5					Qt: 3.3.6
========================================================================
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: dual boot install advice

[b.n.]

Iain Buchanan ha scritto:
> On Fri, 2006-12-08 at 13:26 +0100, Etaoin Shrdlu wrote:
>> On Friday 8 December 2006 01:13, James wrote:
>>
>>> That or many other methods never seem to work for me. XP is spread
>>> out all over the disk and the recovery partition is very difficult to
>>> deal with too.
>> Ah ok, that was not clear to me, and also I did not know that you had a 
>> recovery partition. In this case, as the others said, you need to defrag 
>> before doing anything (although maybe partition magic *might* be able to 
>> sort things out by itself, but I'm not sure, and it's commercial 
>> software).
> 
> Even though Partition Magic is commercial, it is one of the few pieces
> of software I'd happily buy.  In my experience, it's had no trouble
> resizing WXP partitions to make way for linux.

On the free software side, I'd like to advice GParted. It is a small 
live cd that basically starts a gtk based graphic partitioner (very 
partition-magic like, AFAIK from partition magic screenshots...). More 
user friendly than the qtparted you usually find on Knoppix, and it 
resized (defragged) NTFS without a hitch.

It has been a happy surprise for me.

m.
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: dual boot install advice

[Mick]

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On Sunday 10 December 2006 13:54, b.n. wrote:
> Iain Buchanan ha scritto:

> > Even though Partition Magic is commercial, it is one of the few pieces
> > of software I'd happily buy.  In my experience, it's had no trouble
> > resizing WXP partitions to make way for linux.
>
> On the free software side, I'd like to advice GParted. It is a small
> live cd that basically starts a gtk based graphic partitioner (very
> partition-magic like, AFAIK from partition magic screenshots...). More
> user friendly than the qtparted you usually find on Knoppix, and it
> resized (defragged) NTFS without a hitch.
>
> It has been a happy surprise for me.

. . . and a nasty one for me!  I mean, it has worked fine many times for 
reducing the size of a NTFS partition, as long as there are no partitions 
after the one you are resizing.  When I tried to resize a primary partition 
before an extended partition all hell broke loose! (you see, it was a NTFS  
partition with my wife's data).  Unfortunately I couldn't recover it 
afterwards using testdisk.  Running fdisk after gparted showed that in 
resizing partitions gparted had overlapped primary and extended partitions 
areas.  Not sure if this was a bug but my wife will let me no where near her 
drives now without having taken a backup first.

So be warned that more complex partition manipulations with gparted can have 
traumatic effects on your domestic life.  :-))  That said I have reduced in 
size at least a dozen of WinXP partitions, after a few defrag/reboot cycles 
to make sure that the data was well compacted, and had no problems 
whatsoever.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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