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hey there you crazy guys. i am running xp home sp2 at the moment but have designs on using unix too. i am sure that you can run these 2 systems on a single hard drive with an option of which one to run during bootup. the problem is that i have no idea how to do this. someone please help
You need to have the required partitions on the hard disk and a boot manager to choose an OS at boot time.
VMWare can be considered also.
Which Unix?
probably some form of linux. red hat maybe. but i wouldnt be averse to paying for a good unix system. more or less the same thing though right? i have a live cd version of knoppix. i tried to use partition magic before now but it would not let me partition my hdd. any help here?
A good Linux distribution is going to have better drivers, programs, and be esaier to use than a Unix system (generally). For a home user in particular.
Solaris 10 is available for free download nowadays (with zero support) if you are feeling brave.
Red Hat does not have a current "Home" edition. They have opted to concentrate on business/corporate customers. There is a community based version called Fedora that many people like.
I have been using Suse lately. They have both a retail package and a free FTP install available.
I have seen that some distributions come with an NTFS resizer and seen that some people have luck with it. Although in the past I used System Commander with Windows 98 nowadays I partition my drive ahead of time and work with that. Resizing on a large drive can take a long time and there is always some sort of risk factor involved. Usually small.
What errors did you have with Partition Magic? I guess it is possible it was not a current enough version to support resizing your NTFS version.
I am assuming you want to resize. Are you wanting to start from scratch instead?
well, i already have windows installed so i want to just alter the hdd with a partition. i cant remember why partition magic wouldnt work. i got rid of it. any other good working programmes that partitions hdd's?
This is good and free :)
Ranish Partition Manager
Ranish Tutorial
Guide to Multi-booting (includes Ranish instructions)
I know that Mandrake Linux will let you install even if you have Windows. It will automatically set up the partition, install linux, and provide you with a boot manager so that you can boot into the os you want.
I would also get Ranish Partitioner so that you can wipe out the linux partitions if you find that you do not like it.
Hope this helps.
Doc
I use Suse Linux 9.2, which can partition, format, etc. for it's own use on an existing HD and coexists well with Windows (I use XP SP-1). You'll want to delete anything not needed, and defrag the drive (to create as much free space as possible) before starting the Suse install.
It will allow you to use either LILO or GRUB boot managers, which both get along well with an existing Windows installation. I use GRUB, and like it really well. You can use RANISH or any other applicable partition manager to shrink the existing Windows partition to make room for Suse to partition for it's usage.
I actually used a freeware partition manager called PRESIZER, but don't remember where I got it. If nobody beats me to the punch, I'll look at home tonight and post the website where it can be found. Worked out perfectly for me.
Good luck with Linux, I LOVE mine, even though I'm a rank beginner as linux users go.
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Well, a quick dogpile search found the location: http://www.zeleps.com/
If you're using NTFS on your existing Windows partition, pay CAREFUL attention to the warning about prior versions and a bug on the main page before downloading. I used 1.3.4 as recommended, had NTFS, had NO problems whatsoever, although it may not be as easy to use as RANISH. Have used both, don't remember the differences.
Let us know how you get on with this project...
Hey Doc,
The pic in your signature's not working for me... an oversite?
the plot thickens. i reinstalled partition magic. i get an error message 'PowerQuest Partition Magic has detected an error 110 on the partition starting at sector 63 on disk 1.
The length of thr partition in the partition table is incorrect.
The CHS length is 307757142, the LBA length is 307756864, and the file system length is 297154216.
PowerQuest Partition Magic has determined that the length can be changed to the correct value of 297154242.
Would you like PowerQuest Partition Magic to fix this error?'
i click yes naturally. then get error number 2 'Init failed: Error 117.
Partitions drive letter cannot be identified'
but wait. theres more. i 'borrowed' a friends paragon partition manager. on the main screen it shows the proprties of my main partition.
'label:
type:local disk (invalid)
root entries:0
sectors per boot:0
sectors per cluster:0
Capacity:147gb
primary partition 0 "*"(disk 0)
so my disk is invalid??
im a little concerned here guys. i dont understand the majority of what i have posted here but it sounds bad right?
To get around the error 117 you're getting you need to run Partition Magic outside of Windows (ie. create the PM rescue disks and run PM from those).
However, given that there is a problem being sighted in your partition table info I would first backup your hard drive before anything gets changed. If something goes wrong in the correction of the partition table entry you could lose data.
ok. tried that. it gave me 2 options.
1. i could format my hard drive or
2. i could create a partition 7.88mb in size which would not be covered by the 1028 boot cycle or something. i chose to do nothing. is my hard drive f****d? :(
You will almost certainly be able to sort this out by writing zeros to the drive (what is sometimes referred to as a low-level format). However it means that the drive will be entirely wiped and restored to the same condition as when it left tha factory, so you will need to have all your data backed up and reinstall Windows again. If you want to do that the hard drive maker will have a utility available for download on their website. If you're not sure of the make of drive then this nice utility will tell you:
Everest
What version of Partition Magic are you running here? What size is your hard drive (really)? If I read what you said above right then PM was saying you only had an 8gb hard drive?
partition magic 8.0. i have a 160gb hard drive but partition magic has the capacity at 147gb. not sure why.
The reason for the 147 vs 160 difference is due to fact that hard drive manufacturers define a gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes, whereas at the pc software level a gigabyte is defined as 2**30 or 1,073,741,824 bytes. So, what a hard drive manufacturer says is a 160gb drive is a drive with 160,000,000,000 bytes in capacity, but to software like PM it is actually 160,000,000,000 / 1,073,741,824 = 149.11gb (roughly what you are seeing in PM).
So are you saying now that if you run the Dos-based PM that it shows you there are currently no partitions defined? If not, what does it show as defined?
hi guys,
been a while since the last post on this thread. i got annoyed and gave up but now im back in business baby. due to another hdd problem (blaster virus i do believe) i was forced to format my hard drive and reinstall windows. this was suggested as a way to make partition manager work. i tried it out. although no error messages were produced, the partition did not work. when i had set up my patrition options, partition manager told me that it was going to restart and the boot manager would start. from here i should boot into windows where i may complete my partitioning. boot manager loaded ok but it crashed when i chose to boot windows. until i restarted my cpu. then boot manager would start again, let me boot into windows, but the partitioning never happened. i tried this several times and the same result everytime. help?