Partitioning Problem

[DenkaiX]

I'm trying to use Mandrake to partition, And I'm having a problem, cause I'm wanting to break up my windows partition, but the Mandrake Partition software won't break it up. It says it will, as long as the drive is defragmented. But for whatever reason it still won't seperate the partition.

oh, btw, I'm using Mandrake 10.1. on a HP Pavilion dv1000 laptop, with a toshiba mk6025gas 60gb harddrive. Not sure if it is IDE or now, how do I check?[/list]

[AlexK]

Hi,
Mandrake won't allow you to break up an existing windows partition as this will corrupt the Windows Installation. However, there is a tool available called fips, this tool exists on most Mandrake cd's (It was on my Mandrake 8.1 and 10.1 cds). Else you could google it.

What this tool does is that it will repartition an existing primary drive (e.g. C and form an extended drive (e.g. D You can now go about using linux on this extended drive.

However, if you are running NT, 2K or XP and fips doesn't work, then the best thing to do is nuke your esisting setup and start from scratch. NB: remember to backup.

Note, I have only used this tool on a PC running Win 98 with a FAT file system. I do not know the risks of using it on a PC which has Win NT or better on it (Includes XP)

[DenkaiX]

Thanks man, Currently using XP, which sucks. trying to use partition magic... not working though, we'll see what happens. If so, can I back up my HD onto a DVDR and after nuking it, reinstall? will that actually bring back EVERYTHING? I even have an edited kernal/Boot/Login and some other stuff..... so I don't know if I'd have to reedit those files, which would be a pain in the butt, cause some of my software requires the edited files.

[AlexK]

As long as you backup all your edited files and remember the locations of these files, you shouldn't have a problem with reverting the linux system to your current setup. What I suggest you do is that, backup the edited files and any documents, music, videos etc. Nuke your system and start clean.

If you intend to backup programs, remember to backup the binaries, libraries and other assortments which are scattered around the place in the linux system. And once linux is re-installed, put them back into the right place.

If you are thinking about trying to ghost the drive, you could give it a go, but I don't know if it will work as I have never tried it.

Good luck.

[Skid]

DenkaiX,

You will need Partition Magic 8.0 or better to work with the XP partition.

Skid

[DenkaiX]

Used 8.0, didn't work... So I just solved my problem, formatted, and used fdisk.exe. Now I'm having a new problem, and after installing it freezes up at the "Now Starting uninteractive mode." it says that when you press esc while it's loading, and if you don't it just sits there. any suggestions?

[Skid]

hhmmm...

I bought PM 8.0 specifcally to resize my XP NTFS partition in order to add an ext2 and a swap partition. When I installed Mandrake, I had the installer change to ext3.

It freezes when? Did you get Mandrake installed OK or is it freezing during the install?

Skid

[AlexK]

What module is it trying to load when it freezes? Or what is the last module which is loaded when it freezes? Can you login at all?

We need all the info.