installation SUSE with keeping windows partition intact .

[Sandeepsebol]

Hi i have windows 7 installed on my laptop and working fine.... i want to install Open Suse 11.2 along side. I tried installing by booting with DVD for Suse. But it gave me warning to delete the windows partition.

I would like to keep the partition intact with windows 7 and install Suse. Any suggestions ?

I can create partition on my laptop but i do not want to modify the current windows structure.

Somebody please suggest

[daark.child]

Hi and welcome to the forum. During partitioning, click on the advanced tab. This will give you an option to disregard openSUSE's suggestions and create your own custom partitioning structure that leaves Windows untouched.

[devils casper]

Best way is, create partitions for SUSE before starting installation. Download PartedMagic .iso image, burn it to CD and boot up from it. Shrink existing partition and create new partitions for SUSE.
Start SUSE installation and select Manual Partitioning. Install SUSE in newly create partitions.

[Sandeepsebol]

Hi and welcome to the forum. During partitioning, click on the advanced tab. This will give you an option to disregard openSUSE's suggestions and create your own custom partitioning structure that leaves Windows untouched.

- I didnt see any advanced tab..... I had two options create new partition and edit existing partition but no where i could ignore sugegsted ones and use my new partition. What is LVM partition ?

[devils casper]

LVM is Logical Volume like an Extended Partition. LVM is not recommended for new users because its not easy to manage LVMs and most of Partition Managers do not support LVM.

Select Edit existing partition option in Partition Section. Shrink existing partition(s) and create new for SUSE
Or
Create partitions using PartedMagic as suggested earlier.

[Sandeepsebol]

LVM is Logical Volume like an Extended Partition. LVM is not recommended for new users because its not easy to manage LVMs and most of Partition Managers do not support LVM.

Select Edit existing partition option in Partition Section. Shrink existing partition(s) and create new for SUSE
Or
Create partitions using PartedMagic as suggested earlier.

- Will this retain my current windows installation ? i dont want to touch that ...
I have also created one 25Gb space after shrinking my current c drive of 300 GB.... i want to install Suse in that new partition of 25GB and not gettign any options to use tht ...

[juancpryor]

I would resize your partitions from inside Windows 7, because there might be some trouble with using up free space that's between data. There have been may troubles for people trying to install linux over win7 because of this.

[previso]

First order is to clean and defrag existing M$ partition while booted to Windows. Then, as above, edit existing partition. During installation, I would suggest putting the bootloader in the Linux partition. That way, if you decide to nix the *NIX, you won't have a meesed up MBR.

[devils casper]

I have also created one 25Gb space after shrinking my current c drive of 300 GB....

Select create new partition option and select 25GB Partition.

There is no need to defrag Windows OS partitions because Linux partition managers defrag partitions before resize.

[juancpryor]

yup but for some reason partitions on win 7 have information that cannot be moved so, if you set up the beginning of a partition from before that particular point, then there's a chance that windows will just stop working... I would definitely try to set up the partitions first with win7.