| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
SteamHammer
n00b
Joined: 20 Nov 2003
Posts: 12
Location: California
|
 Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 5:58 am Post subject: pre-install partitioning question |
 |
|
Greetings -
I'm going to start my first gentoo install and I have a partitioning question. I'm redhat user and have been for a looooong time. Now that RH 9.0 is a deadrat
I'm looking at gentoo for my desktop. My rig dual boots RH and WinXP pro. My goal for the install is to replace RH 9.0 and use grub as my bootloader
as I do today with RH. I have 2 HDs. /dev/hda is an 80GB WD IDE drive and /dev/hdc is a 40GB IBM IDE drive. All OSs reside on /dev/hda with /dev/hdc housing
my winxp swap space and a large FAT32 partition used for backups. Here is how my drive is setup now:
Name Directory Size
/dev/hda1 /boot 75.9MB
/dev/hda2 WinXP NTFS partition
/dev/hda3 /home 14.4GB
/dev/hda4 extended partition that holds /dev/hda5-10
/dev/hda5 /usr 9.6GB
/dev/hda6 /tmp 741MB
/dev/hda7 /var 741MB
/dev/hda8 / 741MB
/dev/hda9 linux swap 510MB
/dev/hda10 /storage 32.7GB (fat32 for sharing data with XP)
/dev/hdc5 /backup 37.4GB (fat32 backup drive)
My plan is to just re-format all of the linux partitions and re-create them as is when I install Gentoo. I'll then setup grub on /dev/hda and I should be Okie Dokie. Does anyone see any gotchas with this approach? Thanks for any help.
Steam |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Purrkur
Apprentice
Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Posts: 202
Location: Stockholm
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 6:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
Yes, I see one gotcha...
I assume you mean that you want to install GRUB in the MBR? Sometimes that other OS will decide that it needs to redo it's own bootloader which resides in MBR (it could happen when installing an SP for example). If GRUB is found there then that other OS will mess it up and your computer will refuse to boot either OS. Not good....
When you install Gentoo, let GRUB reside in /dev/hda1 and then make that partition active. This means that Windows will be able to play around with the MBR as much as it likes, whenever it likes. It won't affect your machine since the /dev/hda1 partition is the active one.
_________________
Punk is an attitude
not a fashion style |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
SteamHammer
n00b
Joined: 20 Nov 2003
Posts: 12
Location: California
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 7:59 am Post subject: |
|
|
I've done SPs and even a repair install in XP and it hasn't done anything to the MBR plus I keep a boot floppy just in case. One for linux and one dos 6.22 with fdisk. One of those will get me into an OS if the MBR gets whacked.
Currently grub resides in the MBR since I let RH put it there. Been that way since RH 8.0
But to address your suggestion, I install Grub into /dev/hda1 and since that partition is the active one, grub will boot first but it is NOT in the MBR and XP can have at the MBR all it wants? Hmm interesting. I guess I could do that. All I have to do is boot with my dos 6.22 disc and do an FDISK /MBR to dump grub and let XP have at it. Then I swap the active partition to /dev/hda1 prior to my gentoo install and put grub intot h first active partion vs the mbr. Did I get that correct?
Thanks.. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Purrkur
Apprentice
Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Posts: 202
Location: Stockholm
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 8:33 am Post subject: |
|
|
| SteamHammer wrote: | | But to address your suggestion, I install Grub into /dev/hda1 and since that partition is the active one, grub will boot first but it is NOT in the MBR and XP can have at the MBR all it wants? Hmm interesting. I guess I could do that. All I have to do is boot with my dos 6.22 disc and do an FDISK /MBR to dump grub and let XP have at it. Then I swap the active partition to /dev/hda1 prior to my gentoo install and put grub intot h first active partion vs the mbr. Did I get that correct? |
The active partition is always the partition that will be addressed first by BIOS at boot. You are catching this quite well 
Since you already have grub in the MBR then you might as well continue having it so if it hasn't caused you any trouble (and if you know how to fix it if things go haywire). On the other hand, having grub somewhere where Windows can't have at it is always safer I guess, but more hassle in your case like you mentioned above.
Let me also tell you that I am no dual boot expert (I got more than one computer so I have never had to use it ). I once helped a friend that had a dual boot system that got hosed because of Windows deciding to "fix" things in MBR. I have no idea what particular action in Windows caused this "fix". If you want to make a partition active in XP then don't do it through the GUI stuff since I have had nothing but issues with it. However, the command line utility called "diskpart" worked as advertised.
_________________
Punk is an attitude
not a fashion style |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
northern
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Posts: 130
Location: Stoke on Trent, UK
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 9:31 am Post subject: |
|
|
| On another note, during the install my /tmp dir got upto 900+Mb causing me install problems, I upped it to 1G and it was fine. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
SteamHammer
n00b
Joined: 20 Nov 2003
Posts: 12
Location: California
|
| Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 3:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
DOS's FDISK can also make a partition active but I'll read up on diskpart on MS.
Northern: Thanks for the heads up. I'll do just that.
I'm going to "practice" my isntall a few times on an older PPRO180 rig I have to make sure I'm groovy with how gentoo does things since it's not all automatic like RH is. Don't want to fsk things up doing n00b stuff.
I'm not planning on compiling anything either so it wont take that long |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
Installing Gentoo
