Disk Partition And Mandriva 2010

[vilas2006]

I have three SATA Disks. Disk1 (WDC 500gb) for windows Disk 2 (WDC 500gb) for Mandriva 2010 and Disk 3 Segate 250gb blank. For windows installation there is no issue. But while installing Mandriva 2010 for partition an option ¨Auto create¨ is selected Mandriva installed nicely and works fine. I wish to add other versions of Linux i.e. Fedora Ubuntu or Centos. Will someone guide me about Disk Partition for this so that I can use Mandriva Windows Fedora etc on my system

[devils casper]

You can install as many distros as you like. Just create a new partition and install new distro. Linux distros can share single SWAP partition. Do not create any new SWAP partition. Installer will detect and use it.

Installers of most of distros detect all installed Linux and Windows OSes and setup dual/multiboot without any problem. ReadHat based distros are exceptions. Installers of Fedora, CentOS and RHEL do not detect Linux distros and one has to setup multiboot manually.

It's really easy to resize, delete and create new partitions using PartedMagic LiveCD. It has a lot of other tools too and it is one of the must have disk.

If you have any question regarding partition structure, post the output of fdisk -l command here.

[nmset]

You may use drakdisk, from a terminal or from Mandriva Control Centre, to modify your partitions graphically. Of course you should backup valuable data first.

[vilas2006]

Output of fdisk -i is as under:
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500106780160 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0004b99c

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3824 30716248+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 3825 60801 457667752+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 3825 10198 51199123+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 10199 20397 81923436 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda7 20398 30596 81923436 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda8 30597 40795 81923436 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda9 40796 60801 160698163+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00080e47

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 4461 35832951 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 4462 60801 452551050 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 4462 4970 4088511 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb6 4971 60801 448462476 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 250.1 GB, 250058268160 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 32301 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00070a00

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 2 32301 244188000 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdc5 2 32301 244187968+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
[root@localhost ~]#
As suggested I have PartedMagic Live CD. The above partitions was created using Gparted Live CD and latter modified as per Installation of OS. I have tried Installation of Fedora 13 on sdc (ext4 format) and bootloader was installed on boot partition Grub menu come with error ¨Unrecognised file system¨ In Unbuntu 10 Bootloder installed on MBR of sda1 and C drive deleted due to this Win Xp has to be reinstalled. I wish to do the os installation this way 1) Win xp licenced 2) Win xp with lot of freewares and beautiful thems 3) Mandriva Spring 2010.1 3) Fedora 13 4) Open SUSE 11.2 3) Ubuntu ultimate 4) Centos 5 once again. Pl guide and thnks in advance

[yancek]

Your output shows sdc with an extended partition and one logical partition formatted ntfs. During the installation of Fedora, you missed formatting it to a filesystem type used by Linux. ntfs won't work. This is the cause of the "Unrecognized filesystem" error.

[vilas2006]

During fedora installation Custom Partition was selected and new partition /root /boot was created formating was done ext4 by installation process.

[devils casper]

I would suggest you to keep Windows OS in one Hard disk and install Linux OSes in other.
As I suggested earlier, you won't have to do anything special for multiboot setup. Unplug all Hard disks except the disk in which you want to install Linux OSes. Create 12 - 15+ GB partitions for / of each distro and single SWAP partition. Install Fedora in first partition and install other distros one by one. Installer will detect other installed OSes and setup multiboot itself. Plug-in other Hard disks after successful installation of all Linux distros. It's easy to add an entry of Windows OS in GRUB Menu.

[vilas2006]

Thanks Devils Casper. Unplug dose not work for me. Fedora 13 refused to custom partition. Ubuntu 10.4 hangs at login screen and refused to go further. A lot of hours spent on this without much success. I am able to install Fedors 13 with their partition scheme i.e lvm after to mach fight with Grub. Thanks once gain. I am from Mumbai If at all you happens to be in Mumbai Do call me on 09320599029.