Terry R. Grier wrote:
I am trying to install FC3 on my laptop. It has a 20gig HD formatted as NFTS.
I have tried to use the auto and manual to create the root/swap dirs.
The install program will not let me do the install.
I understand that NFTS is worthless for linux. I am not sure how to proceed. I feel like I am in a catch-22
I boot XP and tried to format the C drive and windows will not let me.
Suggesttions?
Hi Terry;
Well, it depends what you want to do?
Do you want to continue dual booting Windows XP?
Regardless if you plan to dual boot, I highly recommend that you immediately back up all your data to CD's. Back up everything because no matter what happens there is a chance you will lose it all if you proceed further.
I am not sure about open source tools, however, if you have a friend that has Partition Magic, get him to make some rescue diskettes for you. You will want Partition Magic 7, preferably 8, rescue disks.
With Partition Magic you can convert your NTFS drive to FAT32, I believe at this point you can install Linux to a folder on your FAT32 partition and test it.
If you are already sure you want to switch to using Linux, or dual boot.
If you plan to dual boot then make sure you do the following before you go further:
- at a dos prompt on win xp - chkdsk c: /f /v /r
- you will have to reboot
- make note if the chkdsk finds any errors, that could be a problem
- at a dos prompt defrag c:
- now you can proceed
- if you aren't dual booting then just run the Fedora CD and Disk Druid can delete your drive (you lose all data when you do this)
IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY BACK UP ALL YOUR DATA NOW!! - this is high risk stuff now, I cannot guarentee that windows xp will still work if you do the following things.
- put in the Partition Magic Rescue Disk and reboot your computer, it will prompt you for disk 2, put that in, the PQ gui will come up and you can proceed.
- Use Partition Magic to convert your drive to FAT32
- now resize your partition down to the minimum plus 1 GB for windows
- try to get as much space as possible for you Linux installation
- use partition magic to move the c partition up 50 to 100 MB, you need to do this so you can create a boot partition at the beginning of the drive, 50 MB should be enough
- create and EXT2 primary partition of 50MB at the beginning of your hard drive, this will be the location of /boot when you install Fedora
- create another primary partition EXT2 using all remaining space after your win xp partition on the hard drive
- in the Linux world this will give you hda1 = /boot = 50 MB EXT2, hda2 = probably 10 GB FAT 32 = windows c:, hda3 = 9 GB EXT2 = linux /
- those numbers are a rough estimate, as I said try to get your windows drive to whatever the minumum you need plus 1 GB
- after making the changes reboot the computer, windows xp should still be able to boot up at this point (cross your fingers you don't crash your win xp)
- now run the Fedora CD, make sure you use Disk Druid so you can select your premade partitions.
- select hda1, edit it, make it /boot, and you can format it as EXT3
- select hda3, edit it, make it /, and you can format it as EXT3
- during the install put the boot loader on hda master boot record, make sure your win xp shows up in the available boot options, you can even rename it as windows xp before you continue with the install.
There are probably open source options that can resize a partition and change the formating on it. I do not know what they are. I can tell you from experience that Partition Magic has been my product of choice for dual booting for ages. I always pre-prepare my hard drive for all the OS's with partition magic rescue disks before I install anything. You can purchase partition magic from any computer store. Like I said earlier though, if you know someone who has partition magic 8, just get them to make you a few sets of rescue diskettes, thats all you need to prepare your hard drive.
The other alternative is to simply back up all your data.
- this option is to just simply wipe the drive and reinstall everything
- you can use the Fedora CD in rescue mode to repartition your hard drive
- man fdisk or fdisk --help for information on how to use fdisk
- create a 50 MB EXT 3 partition on hda1, probably 10 GB FAT 32 or less for Win XP on hda2, 10 GB EXT3 for / on hda3
- make sure to set hda2 as your default boot point
- exit out of the Fedora rescue CD
- reinstall windows xp first
- after your windows xp is back up and running
- now install Fedora
In the end, you only need to do all of this if you want to dual boot. I highly recommend reading up some of the dual boot HOW-TO's on www.tldp.org they are very informative. Also check out www.fedorafaq.org for info on dual booting and for links to information elsewhere. Also the RH9 manuals on www.redhat.com also have some information on dual booting.
Sincerely, Gerald
