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Old 04-16-2001, 04:31 PM   #1
snieftje
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Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Bruges, Belgium
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Question


Hi,

I have Suse Linux 7.1 and I'm trying to install it with Yast2. I have 1 harddisk of 13Gb. with one partition with windows 98 installed on it. I have a Intel PIII 500Mhz. 64Mb Ram.
I formatted my harddisc and installed windows 98 (just to make sure there where no mistakes in windows). I defragged and I ran scandisc succesfully. Everything worked great.
Then I rebooted the system and booted from the Suse CD1.
This is what I did further:
I choose my language, keyboard layout and timezone.
then I choose NEW INSTALLATION.
I selected my harddisc: IDE, 12,66Gb, /dev/hda, WBC WB136AA
I chose to make the windows partition smaller
I set the space for linux on 8Gb. that leaves about 5Gb left for windows
Then I selected STANDARD WITH OFFICE and Kernel 2.2.18
Then a message comes that a bootdisk is going to be made with LILO. (this is what I want I want my system to go to linux when I put in my disc in, and boot into win98 when it's not in)
then I fill in my name, surname, login, password(x2)
I give the root password
and then the final message comes saying that the installation is going to begin. Ok so far so good;

but then when the setup will start to create the partitions I get an error saying he is unable to resize the windows partition.

Has this something to do with the fact that there is some data at the end of my hard disc? when I defrag there are always some green squares at the end of my harddrive which means there is some data at the end? Am I right or what am I doing wrong.

The first time I installed linux I chose to do the partition managing myself. (that's an option in Yast2 or you choose to resize your windows partition and linux creates his own partitions !this is my problem! or you do it all yourself) Next to my windows partition I created three more partitions for linux (root, boot, swap). then my instalation was succesfully. I could boot in linux. I put in my floppy boot disc with lilo on it installed and I could choose 3 things (linux, suse and something else) but i couldnt choose windows and he wouldn't run windows if my floppy wasn't in it either? what went wrong? Linux worked but windows didn't anymore
Now I formatted and started all over again now i just have win98 (it was pretty damn hard to remove those linux partitions)

thanx in advance

Snieftje
 
Old 04-16-2001, 04:48 PM   #2
webtoe
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Location: Cambridge, England
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there is often the windows swap (virtual memory) at the end of the disk. some times it doesnt matter but sometimes it does. which defrag tool you use? the norton ones often leave stuff at the end. use the windows one (it takes longer but sticks everything near the begining). try disabling virtual memory and then installing linux then re enabling it. that should work.

as for partitions, you needn;t have a boot partition, it;s not necessary. instead have a home one to keep all your personal files in.

now, lilo is used slightly differently than how you described. you use the disk in an emergency if your linux system wont boot (hence the reason win isn;t there, you cant use that to fix nething). you use lilo on your hard disk (set up at install time) to load either linux or win. you can set a default option (so that after, say, 30 secs it'll boot win). i assume from what you put that has straightened things out.

hope that helped

Alex
 
Old 04-16-2001, 09:59 PM   #3
KevinJ
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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Colorado Springs, CO
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why?

If you just reinstalled Windows... why did you use the entire harddrive? Why didn't you only use 8GB of it?
 
Old 04-18-2001, 08:01 AM   #4
snieftje
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When i first installed linux I had two partitions ready. One with windows 98 on it and one empty one to install linux on. Then I manually (in the SUse setup) removed the empty one and made the three linux partition (root, boot and swap). If I chose to automatically resize the windows partition suse would be installed on the same partition as windows leaving on empty partition. therefor I deleted the empty partition. Linux installed.
everything went great but then the problem was. I couldnt get back into windows. my system would only boot with my bootdisck (LILO) and I couldn't choose windows.
 
Old 04-18-2001, 08:39 AM   #5
KevinJ
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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Colorado Springs, CO
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okay.. that sounds like a LILO problem now

You need to add an entry into your /etc/lilo.conf for Windows.
Mine looks like this:
-----------------------------------------
[kevin@moe kevin]$ cat /etc/lilo.conf
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
timeout=500
message=/boot/message
linear
default=linux

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.0
label=linux
read-only
root=/dev/hdb5

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.17-14a
label=linuxa
read-only
root=/dev/hdb5

other=/dev/hda1
label=Win98
------------------------------------

You need to add something like those last two lines. Edit for whatever partition your Windows install is on and give it whatever one-word label you want. After saving that, run /sbin/lilo and you should see a successful install to your boot record.
 
Old 04-18-2001, 02:31 PM   #6
snieftje
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Okay I'm starting to freak out here. I heard it was hard to work with linux. So I bought the most simple version there is and I still have problems. jeezes I'm getting depressed over here. Okay I'm willing to format my whole disk (again) and start from scratch. Now I want to do this as perfect as possible. Suggestions are welkom:

here is my suggestion.

-format c:
-create one partition of 4GB for windows (with fdisk)this will leave about 9GB of unpartitioned free space
-install windows 98 on the partition of 4GB
-Boot from the linux CD and TRY to install Linux

Is this a good way to start??? Will I now be able to make (in the Suse setup Yast2) the three partition (boot, root and swap) for linux in the part of 9GB that is left on my hard disk????
And by the way what are these three partitions why are they needed (why not only 1 partition like windows?)????

By the way thanx for you help so far guys... I really really appreciate it.

 
  


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