Knoppix 3.8.2 installation and partition problems

[lapel]

Hello
i recently downloaded knoppix 3.8.2 and then i decided to instal it as dual boot with my windows xp on my hard disk.

I downloaded flash video by iron geek to learn how to go ahead for installation and found it very helpful. I planned to instal knoppix on my first hard drive which i have divided into 3 partitions i.e C for windows XP,D for knoppix and E for my backup data.

I deleted partitiond D with partition magic so that I can recognize it during knoppix installation.

during the process of installing knoppix I created linux swap and root partitons with Qparted from knoppix to instal knoppix on it.

Proceeding ahead when I started installing knoppix i saw that it would give my whole hard drive in option where to instal knoppix instead of asking about knoppix partitions i had already created.I still accepted the option to choose the whole hard disk and to my astonishment it bagan formatting my whole hard drive but i immediately canceled it.

Now i am wondering if I had created partitions for knoppix on my D drive why won`t it pick up in the installtion process and ask me and would rather go ahead to format my whole hard drive? I was not asking it to consume my whole hard disk,rather i created partitons for it on my D drive ,then why would it try to format my whole hard disk?

plz help me clear this confusion.

thanks

regards.

lapel

[tdjokic]

I don't use Qparted, but I know that after makeing partition, you must use a specific command, it is Commit I think (can't reach Qtparted for the moment, must be root). Othewise your changes are not permanent and you don't have new partitions.

[lapel]

Qparted is the only partitioning tool in knoppix ( as far as i found) and i did commit the changes and wrote them to hard disk before exiting the qparted after which i proceeded to installationz. so the confuion remains.

[eco2geek]

First off, Linux doesn't use drive letters for partitions the way Windows does. Your first (master) hard disk (on your primary IDE interface) is known as "hda". The first (primary) partition on your first hard disk is called "hda1". The second (primary) partition on your first hard disk is "hda2". Your second (slave) hard disk is "hdb"; etc. So instead of telling us that you intended to install Knoppix on your "D" drive, please identify your partitions using Linux terminology. (Hint: You can find out how your hard drive is partitioned by running the Knoppix CD and running either QTParted or cfdisk.)

QTParted is not the only disk formatting tool available. There is an ncurses-based disk formatting tool in Knoppix named "cfdisk". (By "ncurses-based" I mean it has a sort of graphical user interface, but it's completely text-based and you have to run it from the console.) Many consider cfdisk to be better than QTParted. I can tell you that QTParted is a bit flaky. Once after using QTParted I ended up with a hard disk partitioning scheme that went like this: hda2-hda1-hda3.

In any case, if you want to use a graphical partition utility, and have Partition Magic, use it; it creates Linux (ext3 and swap) partitions just fine.

So, what does QTParted tell you that your partition layout is now?

[lapel]

WELL THANKS eco2geek.your reply solved all my problems,knoppix installation is like a breeze

Qparted was confusing me and when you talked of Partition magic it just struck my mind to use that to create linux partitions for knoppix and I did it then.

When I began installation I checked my partitions with Qparted and noted them down,my drive to instal knoppix was/dev/hdc5 so I went ahead to instal knoppix on it and things went smoothly. Now the only thing left is to apply apt-get update and see what`s there to get.

I want to mention something here that irongeek has shown in his flash video of knoppix installation that linux swap is the first partition to be created while Hd Install How To notes from Knoppix says the root partitons must be the first partiton...so who is correct?
Please comment.

Thanks

Regards.

Lapel

[eco2geek]

Great, glad you got it installed!

I want to mention something here that irongeek has shown in his flash video of knoppix installation that linux swap is the first partition to be created while Hd Install How To notes from Knoppix says the root partitons must be the first partiton...so who is correct?

AFAIK, it doesn't matter in the least.

(It used to matter, when using the boot loader LILO with old BIOSes, in that LILO could only access partitions that started within the first 1024 sectors of the boot drive. So you had to have the root partition first -- meaning, starting within the first 1024 sectors of the boot drive. But with newer BIOSes, and then GRUB, that is a thing of the past.)