[tlinux-users:08585] Re: Help Wanted: Partitioning for Debian + MS-Windows

On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 02:30:35 -0700 (PDT)
"Joel T." <[email protected]> wrote:

>Hi All,
>
>I wish to partition my Toshiba Dynabook to have both Debian and MS-Windows; HD size is 80GB.
>
>I'd appreciate suggestions/comments on:
>1. What  partitions to set?. 
>2. Should I preserve the Windows recovery partition which came with the preinstalled on laptop HD? (note: it comes with a Japanese Windows which I don't use and plan to overwrite with an English Windows) version).
>
>Thanks,
>Joel.
>

I just did this on my Satellite A135, that came with Vista.
At first I just wiped Vista, and installed Linux, but then figured
"what the heck, I can test Windows Perl scripts on it". So I put
in the Toshiba Restore disk, and let it reinstall.

What happens during the reinstall, is you can select an option to
use less than the full disk for Vista. Select down to 20 Gig (the minimum).
Install. Now what you will have is 
/dev/sda1  1 gig   Maintenance partition
/dev/sda2  20 Gig Windows.

Now, I have always been one of those old timers, that like to keep
a small partition in sda1 for /boot, to hold all the kernels. This just
makes booting foolproof, since all bioses can get to sda1. So I format
the Recovery partition(/dev/sda1) to use as /boot for linux.

So......
When you install (I don't do debian but it should be similar to Slackware
Ubuntu, and Suse for the "partition selection" process), fill out your disk.

An example below:

1. Make primary sda3, make it vfat to have a way of writing to Windows.
    Vista is ntfs only, and linux can't write to it yet, so you need a way in.
    You will need to set it's partition type to fat32, and format it either
    with Windows or mkdosfs -F 32.  That can be done later.

2. Make extended sda4.... the rest of the disk, to be filled in with logical partitions.
    (Ubuntu will do this automagically for you, and will automatically make the
     next partition /dev/sda5... so don't get confused if it happens).

3. Now you can split the rest of the drive for linux:

    sda5  1 gig                                   /swap
    sda6   10 gig   reiserfs or ext3    /  
    sda7   10 gig   reiserfs or ext3    spares for testing other distros
    sda8   10 gig   reiserfs or ext3    spares  for testing or extra space
    sda9   30 gig   reiserfs or ext3    /home


When you install, format /dev/sda1 as ext2, so any kernel can
recognize it. I know Ubuntu needs it's boot ext2 or ext3, it won't
boot reiserfs, so play it safe with ext2.
Format / anyway you want.
You may not want to format /home (except for the first time). :-)

That is the basic idea, good luck to you.

Remember, back up any important data first.

zentara

P.S. I did find one cool way to backup/restore Vista from linux,
that didn't destroy it's bootability.

Just dd it.
To back up:  dd if=/devsda2  of=/mnt/usbdrive/vista.bak
To restore:   dd if=/mnt/usbdrive/vista.bak  of=/dev/sda2



-- 
I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth.
http://zentara.net/japh.html