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[maurolust]

Hi, I'm a telco grad student from Brazil, new to Linux in every possible way and to forums in general. My main concern is to use VL to learn more about OS's in general, improve my computer skills and become less dependent from Microsoft. One day who knows, I might leave Windows for good. I hope you can help convince me to do so.

So far, my attempt to start using Linux hasn't worked very well. I bought a new HD so I could install VL without giving away my Windows installation, but after cloning my current system (60GB) to the new HDD (100GB) I realized I couldn't install another OS on the remaining partition (apparently it was too high in the memory address).

I had actually partitioned this new disk in advance, but apparently clonezilla overwrote all previous partitions when I cloned the old drive. Is there any tutorial on how to install Linux without giving up on your previous system? Is there a disk partitioning/cloning freeware better than clonezilla?

I probably should post this question in another section, but since I'm already at it and it seem like a very simple issue, maybe I can kill two birds.

[bigpaws]

Welcome to Vector Linux!

Why did you clone the Hard drive?

Why do you believe there was a problem with the memory space (usually not an issue)?

Which version of Vector are you trying to install?

There is a search box that you can search for answers that maybe relevant
to your problem.

Install the second drive no need to clone unless you were moving the drives for
another reason. Use the second drive for Vector and leave the first drive alone.

HTH

Bigpaws

[maurolust]

Welcome to Vector Linux!

Why did you clone the Hard drive?
(...)
Why do you believe there was a problem with the memory space (usually not an issue)?

Install the second drive no need to clone unless you were moving the drives for
another reason. Use the second drive for Vector and leave the first drive alone.

HTH

Bigpaws

Thank you for the fast reply! First of all, I'm installing the So Ho 5.8 version. And I forgot to mention that my computer is a Laptop (with no space for a 2nd HDD) and I plan on keeping my old HDD as an external back up storage for data. That's why I wanted to clone the old disk, i's the only way I can keep the content and software I have installed there and have more disk space for VL.

I shouldn't have written "memory"  , I actually meant 'storage'. The VL installation was aborted exactly at the step when the ext2 partition was being examined ('partition error'). I don't know much about this, but I've been told it's not recommended to install an OS when you have a 60GB NTFS partition before the ext2. I'll check other threads on the ideal partitioning scheme for multiboot installation (this case is not detailed in the 'HOWTOs').
thanks

[lagagnon]

We are unable to help you until we know what partitioning scheme you now have on the replicated drive. You can do that by going into the VL Install CD, second screen, choose Exit, you then end up at a root console. Type "fdisk -l" and post the output of that command here so we can determine what partitions you have and if you have any free space to install VL.

[GrannyGeek]

That's why I wanted to clone the old disk, i's the only way I can keep the content and software I have installed there and have more disk space for VL.

You can shrink an NTFS or FAT32 partition without data loss using GParted. It's on the VectorLinux 5.8 LiveCD and also on SystemRescue (do a Web search for that--free download, lots of nice utilities for fixing Linux and Windows). I used GParted on my Vista NTFS Drive C to carve out 16 gigs for VectorLinux. Worked perfectly. Actually, I shrank the drive by 48 gigs, then created an extended partition to include all the empty space, then created a 32-gig FAT32 volume using Vista's Disk Management Snapin, then within the extended partition I created a 512-meg swap partition for Linux using cfdisk, and then I made a Linux partition of all the remaining space using cfdisk. I formatted it as reiserfs.

Be sure to back up your Windows partition before you do any repartitioning, regardless of what tool you use. Although it's usually reliable, something bad does occasionally happen. Also, having a backup scares away the computer gremlins.<g>

Why are you using ext2? ext3 is a journalling file system, as is reiserfs (to mention the tried and true file systems).

I've been told it's not recommended to install an OS when you have a 60GB NTFS partition before the ext2.

Not in my experience. I have two computers with NTFS partitions of over 60 gigs before my Linux partition. They are all formatted with reiserfs. Unless your computer has a very old BIOS, Linux can boot from just about anywhere. The boot manager will find it.

I have three computers with multiboot. The one I'm writing on is a laptop with Vista and VL 5.9 beta. My newer desktop has XP and VL 5.8 Standard and two hard drives. My older desktop has Win 98SE, Win XP, and three versions of VectorLinux. It also has two hard drives. On none of them is Linux the sole occupant of a hard drive.
--GrannyGeek

[maurolust]

I decided to shift my cloned partition 2GiB to the right, now my HDD is being partitioned as following:
new primary #1 2GiB ReiserFS on /dev/hdc
/dev/hdc1 55.88GiB NTFS on /dev/hdc1
new primary #2 10.00GiB ReiserFS on /dev/hdc
extended partition #3 25.28GiB on /dev/hdc

Moving the partition is taking a lot longer than it took me to clone it in the first place . It will probably be over in 4 hours!

See you later!

[maurolust]

This time I managed to install VL, but I'm facing some problems with the boot loader

first time I tried lilo, which resulted in:
lilo error=Fatal
either FIX-TABLE or IGNORE TABLE must be specified


then I reinstalled trying GRUB, the error message was :

Running "install/boot/grub/stage1(hd0,3)(hd0,3) 1+22p (hd0,3)/boot/grub/stage2/boot/grub/menu1st"...failed
Error 6: Mismatched or corrupt version of stage1/stage2
grub>quit

My partition settings were:
primary #1 2GiB swap
primary #2 60GiB NTFS (XP)
primary #3 10GiB ReiserFS (root)
Primary #4 27GiB ReiserFS (user)
 logical #5 22GiB (user)
 logical #6 5GiB

The 5GiB logical partition was meant for XP/Linux file exchange, but I don't think I did it right . Anyway that would require a new thread. Any solved similar case?
It doesn't look like I'll have to go through the whole installation process again, does it?

[lagagnon]

I suspect that the partition to which you are attempting to install a boot loader to has not been made "bootable" when you created your partitions. The output of the Linux command will tell you if you have a bootable partition or not (there will be an asterisk under the boot column). If you have problems read the Installation guide at our website, the partitioning part ( http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/docs/vl58/manuals/vl5_installation_guide_en.html#partitioning ).

You may not have to re-install - you just go to the second page on the VL Install screens and choose LILO Repair, after you have fixed up your partitions.

[uelsk8s]

looks like you have a bad partition scheme to me.
you should not be able to have 4 primary partitions and an extended partition.

[nightflier]

If you moved your windows partition, that may cause problems for XP. Do you have the discs needed to re-install it?

[maurolust]

If you moved your windows partition, that may cause problems for XP. Do you have the discs needed to re-install it?

Sure I do. XP is doing very well in his new home.

[nightflier]

Did you re-install XP from scratch, repair old one, or did it just boot right up after the cloning/moving operations?

[maurolust]

Did you re-install XP from scratch, repair old one, or did it just boot right up after the cloning/moving operations?

It booted right up! Nightflier was right, there were 3 primaries (Swap,XP and Root) and the others are extended partitions. I changed the shared partition (the logical partition accessible to both VL and XP) to fat32 and made the root partition bootable, but still the lilo repair didn't work, same error message as before (and XP wouldn't boot, but it got back to normal after I toggled the root's boot capability off). Maybe I should take some time to read the lilo man page, or should I use Grub instead?

[nightflier]

uelsk8s gets credit for spotting the partition anomaly 

You don't need your linux root partition to be set as bootable. Leave everything set as it is when XP works. Once the boot loader gets going, it can continue to other (non-bootable) partitions.

Can you boot VL by using the CD and entering "linux root=/dev/hdXX ro" where hdXX is where you installed VL?

There is another way of multi-booting, as described here:
http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=1073.msg6559#msg6559

[maurolust]

Can you boot VL by using the CD and entering "linux root=/dev/hdXX ro" where hdXX is where you installed VL?

Yes, I can.

There is another way of multi-booting, as described here:
http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=1073.msg6559#msg6559

I'm looking forward to try this, but it seems to me that I first should get lilo properly installed, right?

By the way, SoHo looks great.