NTFS Installation Questions from the newbiest of newbies....

**ph349397** · 07-12-2003, 03:41 AM

OK, I would consider myself a newbie, even though I've successfully installed another Linux distribution (Vector Linux) on an old Pentium 100, all the while leaving the existing Win98 installation intact. Now I'm challenged with installing Knoppix 3.2 on my girlfriend's brand new Toshiba Satellite laptop, which of course has an NTSF formatted hard drive (40 gigs). This is what I've picked up upon skimming other posts dealing with installing on an NTSF formatted HD:

1. Upon booting and running Knoppix from the CD drive, utilities can be run in order to divide the existing partition on the HD into multiple partitions.

2. It is possible to leave WinXP untouched, and the resulting partition that WinXP is on will of course remain formatted as NTSF. The new partition(s) that Knoppix will occupy will have to be formatted ext3.

I'll stop there for now. If anyone can tell me whether these statements are correct, or add additional, clarifying statements, it'll really help to provide me with a foundation on which I can understand subsequent and more detailed steps in the installation process.

Cheers

**rickenbacherus** · 07-12-2003, 05:41 AM

Originally Posted by ph349397

Now I'm challenged with installing Knoppix 3.2 on my girlfriend's brand new Toshiba Satellite laptop, which of course has an NTSF formatted hard drive (40 gigs). This is what I've picked up upon skimming other posts dealing with installing on an NTSF formatted HD:

Defrag xp first and of course- if you really really need it whatever it is, data, mp3's photo's whatever- back it up first. Of course you can use Knoppix for that too.

1. Upon booting and running Knoppix from the CD drive, utilities can be run in order to divide the existing partition on the HD into multiple partitions.

qtparted (as root) is one bad-mofo- check it out.

2. It is possible to leave WinXP untouched, and the resulting partition that WinXP is on will of course remain formatted as NTSF. The new partition(s) that Knoppix will occupy will have to be formatted ext3.

Sure it's possible. I doubt that she's already used 40G worth of hard drive. You can use ext3 or Reiser or xfs filesystems- there are others too. ext3 is fairly well tested and worthy- reiser is nice too- I have been using both.

I always write my partition tables down on paper as they can get fairly complicated and it's nice to have a reminder just before you commit to writing a new partition table or filesystem

I would make two partitions for Knoppix at least, one for /root and one for /home plus you're going to need to read a little about LILO man lilo and there are alot of how-to's out there. LILO is the bootloader BTW. Do a search here on the site too.

**garyng** · 07-12-2003, 01:59 PM

Originally Posted by rickenbacherus

Sure it's possible. I doubt that she's already used 40G worth of hard drive.

While not all 40G has been used, I bet that almost all new machine have a factory installed XP that used the whole disk and quite possible it is NTFS. That is also the reason I am working on the newest GRUB patch to install on NTFS. Together with the poorman's HD install, it would be possible to install KNOPPIX on any new machine occupied by MS

**ph349397** · 07-13-2003, 01:04 AM

While not all 40G has been used, I bet that almost all new machine have a factory installed XP that used the whole disk and quite possible it is NTFS.

Ok, so factory installations of XP somehow "use" the whole disk? Wouldn't a defrag solve that problem?

Also, someone suggested that I use qtparted for the repartitioning, does qtparted also format the new partitions for me (as ext3 or whatever)?

**rickenbacherus** · 07-13-2003, 02:16 AM

Originally Posted by ph349397

Ok, so factory installations of XP somehow "use" the whole disk? Wouldn't a defrag solve that problem?

Well you see- wimpdoze is very rudimentary. It always makes one partition on the entire first hard drive. There are ways to circumnavigate this though.

Also, someone suggested that I use qtparted for the repartitioning, does qtparted also format the new partitions for me (as ext3 or whatever)?

qtparted is a frontend for command line partition creation programs. It can make partitions, it can change the size of partitions. Boot the Knoppix cd, open a term and do:

sudo qtparted

Just have a look at what there is to see- it's very easy to understand. If you defrag xp first then it will be able to shrink the partition. It will tell you how much you can shrink it even. It's easy- fire it up already!

Write your partition table down on a piece of paper.

If i had a 40G hdd w/ XP I would do something like this:

Resist the temptation to overwrite xp with Linux, then create the following partition table. This is just an example but tne sizes should work just fine. They don't need to be exact.

/dev/hda1 primary NTFS wnixp 5G
/dev/hda2 primary linux swap 500MB
/dev/hda3 primary linux 3G
/dev/hda4 extended
/dev/hda5 logical linux 4G

Choose /dev/hda2 for your swap when the knx-hdinstall script asks you for it,

Choose /dev/hda3 for /root.

After you install you can make /dev/hda5 your /home partition. (you don't need to worry about it now tho).

Of course- you have plenty of disk real-estate so go ahead and make your NTFS partition as big as you like.

BTW- you don't have to partition the whole drive- you can leave the rest just like it is and do it later. Maybe you'll install another linux distro. I boot 3 distros from my 20G with room to spare. You could set up a fat32 partition and share it with both xp and Linux- .ogg's and mp3's for example or those home movies you made last weekend.

Just be careful with a shared partition. You could easily pass on something to windows that doesn't affect Linux and we all know that windows can crash just fine by itself thank you.

Partitioning is not something that is etched in stone- it's whatever works for you.

After you get your partitions made you can run the knx-hdinstall script from a term as root. You will be given the opportunity to choose your filesystem. I would recommend ext3 or reiser. The script will then format the drives for you. Yes drives- not drive. You should now think of your machine as having multiple drives.

**ph349397** · 07-13-2003, 02:43 AM

Well you see- wimpdoze is very rudimentary. It always makes one partition on the entire first hard drive. There are ways to circumnavigate this though.

I understand that most casual Windows users only use one partition on their hard drive, and that most (if not all) out-of-the-factory PC's have a version of Windows installed on the ONE partition that IS their entire hard drive. When the other dude earlier said:

While not all 40G has been used, I bet that almost all new machine have a factory installed XP that used the whole disk and quite possible it is NTFS.

I think what he meant was that the factory-installation of Windows actually *uses* the entire hard drive, that is there is data, sometimes unmovable, scattered across the whole thing. I just ran a defrag on my hard drive, and after it finished there are still two big blue bands of "Contiguous Files" about right smack in the middle of my hard drive. With that said, I think I'd still be able to chop of the "end" of my hard drive (maybe the last 25%?) and use it for all the various Linux partitions I need.

**rickenbacherus** · 07-13-2003, 03:04 AM

Originally Posted by ph349397

I think what he meant was that the factory-installation of Windows actually *uses* the entire hard drive, that is there is data, sometimes unmovable, scattered across the whole thing. I just ran a defrag on my hard drive, and after it finished there are still two big blue bands of "Contiguous Files" about right smack in the middle of my hard drive.

Thanks for clarifying. Just another reason you need a journaled file system like ext3 or reiser. Of course that means Linux.

**ph349397** · 07-13-2003, 05:14 AM

thanks for the feedback mr. rickenbacherus.

Resist the temptation to overwrite xp with Linux, then create the following partition table. This is just an example but tne sizes should work just fine. They don't need to be exact.

/dev/hda1 primary NTFS wnixp 5G
/dev/hda2 primary linux swap 500MB
/dev/hda3 primary linux 3G
/dev/hda4 extended
/dev/hda5 logical linux 4G

What does "extended" mean for the /dev/hda4 partition? It looks like you described the suggested size for the other partitions but for the /dev/hda4 partition you've written "extended".

**rickenbacherus** · 07-13-2003, 05:28 AM

Originally Posted by ph349397

What does "extended" mean for the /dev/hda4 partition? It looks like you described the suggested size for the other partitions but for the /dev/hda4 partition you've written "extended".

You can only have 4 primary partitions. If you only had 4 partitions then they would look like this:

/dev/hda1 primary
/dev/hda2 primary
/dev/hda3 primary
/dev/hda4 primary

But, since you need more than 4 partitions then basically partition #4 is going to include the remainder of the disc and all subsequent partitions will be created inside of it so it is called 'extended'. It just means "A partition that is holding other partitions." Those other partitions are called "logical drives".

It's actually just a workaround on the limitation of 4 partitions.

Boot the Knoppix cd, open a term and do this:

sudo cfdisk

You can delete and create partitions all day- just don't use the write function and nothing will actually be changed. Here's a little how-to on cfdisk. Basically- you can use it to practice creating partitions and hopefully learn a little about partitions while you're at it.

**ph349397** · 07-13-2003, 06:17 AM

But why do I need 5 partitions? Why can't I just partition it like so:

/dev/hda1 primary NTFS wnixp 5G
/dev/hda2 primary linux swap 500MB
/dev/hda3 primary linux 3G
/dev/hda4 logical linux 4G

I guess I'm still not understanding the function of the "extended" partition. Would it be just another drive that I could store stuff on, and you described it as "extended" because the size of it would simply depend on how much space is left after the other partitions are defined?