messed up installing.. twice!!

[MoXplorer]

Oh man..

I have managed to mess up 2 laptops in the last month due to my incompetence and impatience.

First: i didn't read the Manual!

Seond: i installed FC6 over Kubuntu accidentally without partitoining. Luckily, I managed to rescue the hard disk material before causing more damage.

Third: I recently acquired a Sony SZ220/B laptop. On the second day, I installed Ubuntu 6.06 without partitioining. All drivers and XP were erased. i have been trying with my local dealer to re-install the drivers using XP again but have been having an extremely slow to freezing system. CPU Usage keeps reading 97-99%.

Coming from absolutely no knowledge in Operating Systems I have developed an obsession to Linux since my intro to it a couple months back, I want to eventually exclude my systems of anything windows related but for the time being I feel I need to have it installed due to my lack of linuxpertise.

Any advice will be more than appreciated, especially if it is SZ220 related.

The best part of all of this is I have developed amazing new Linux ambitions and have developed the habit of reading the manuals!!

All the best.
Peace out.
Mo

[Cabhan]

Alrighty. Do you have a Windows install CD?

If you do, you can stick that into the computer and boot from it. When you get to the partitioning screen, delete EVERYTHING (note: this will wipe your drive. If you have data you need to recover, do NOT follow these instructions. Let us know, and we can try to help).

You can now make a partition to install Windows on. Don't take up too much space with it, since we're going to install Windows and Linux side-by-side. If you're going to rely on Windows a fair amount, you might take 50% of the HD or more, but it's really up to you.

Anyway, you should now have a single unformatted partition and a chunk of FREE SPACE (note: this is not a second unformatted partition. It should explicitly say "FREE SPACE"). Format the partition as NTFS and install Windows on it. Hum quietly to yourself.

Now that Windows is installed, we can install Linux. Pop the Ubuntu LiveCD into your CD drive and boot from it. Go to the install program, and let that run.

At some point, it will ask about partitions. Tell it to use the free space and NOT TO OVERWRITE ANYTHING. Ubuntu will detect the unpartitioned space and will set up its partitions there, leaving Windows alone.


Does this all make sense to you?

[MoXplorer]

Hey...

Thanks alot, It makes perfect sense, but unfortunately I dont have XP on cd.
I got my laptop back today from the dealer. They managed to re-install all the drivers but did not partition the disk.

Is it possible to use the existing XP to copy onto disk and then follow your instructions on partioning.

I would also have to back up all the drivers only, I dont have anything in the memory yet.

Another thing is when i get to the partioning stage I would like to have space for at least 2 Distros in addition to Windows, I have 100G Hard disk. Whats your advice on that?

Thanks

[cheesecake42]

you can't make a windows cd from the existing version on your drive, but you can "borrow" one from somebody and use the disc partitioning function

[MoXplorer]

thanks cheesecake!!

I was hoping I wouldnt have to do that, my country is having a major strike tomorrow that might escalate into a lot more which will delay finding someone with a copy of the cd...

[MoXplorer]

I have managed to pick up an XP cd, but it apparently is not the newest version, is that gonna affect my re-installation?

I am creating recovery discs of the system initially.

Hope it works out this time.

[flipjargendy]

It might work for some of the drivers, but if its Service Pack 1 (SP1) and you have Service Pack 2 (SP2) installed then you might run into problems with wireless networking and things like that. It's very likely that important components will be effected also... i could be wrong. Windows seems somewhat unpredictable to me.

Here are some links that might help you get a bit of understanding on a few things:

• Partitioning for what sounds similar to your situation.

• Basic Questions/Commands, some of which i'm sure you already know but some that might help.

• Ubuntu Wiki if you're still interested in Ubuntu.